


Iron String

by Lyri



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Full Shift Werewolves, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Malia and Jackson are twins, allison is a hunter, awful laura, general kate warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:20:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22483243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyri/pseuds/Lyri
Summary: Stiles finds a puppy hiding under a car...then his life spirals out of his control
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 24
Kudos: 805





	Iron String

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Every heart vibrates to that iron string' by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
> 
> I've been sitting on this fic for over a year and I finally got around to actually finishing it. 
> 
> Many thanks to originfire @ tumblr/Firebull @ AO3 for helping me talk through this plot so, SO many moons ago.
> 
> Unbeta'd because I have no friends in this fandom, lol.
> 
> See notes at the end for more details for characters and the bad guys.

Stiles Stilinski heaves a deep, bone weary sigh when he finally parks his Jeep in his parking spot of his apartment building and cuts the engine. He sinks back against the seat and just relaxes for a moment before he works up the energy to get out.

It had been a long shift for Stiles. Working as a Crime Scene Technician in a sleepy town like Beacon Hills, he doesn't really get a lot of action. Sure, there'll be the odd break-in or car-jacking, a hate crime or two every few years – and that one murder that was way before Stiles' time – but for the most part, Stiles' actual work is over within a couple of hours and he spends the rest of his shifts working on cases from nearby towns who have asked for help because they're so overworked.

With another sigh, he pulls his bag from the backseat of the Jeep, his brain already running over the cases he plans to flick through after dinner, and makes his way to the elevator of the underground lot that will take him to his floor.

A whimper and a scratching from underneath a car catches his attention. It gets windy in the parking garage sometimes, a wind tunnel created by the two exits causes all sorts of things to get blown into the garage and trapped beneath the parked cars. But that's not what this sounds like.

Peering around the ground, Stiles gets down on his hands and knees, getting all sorts all over his uniform pants, Stiles finally spots four tiny paws under what he thinks is Danny's car.

“Hey, there, little guy,” he says gently crouching down even further, until he can spot a dirty, shivering puppy. “Well, aren't you a little cutie.”

He reaches for it before he can think better of himself, grabbing the puppy by the scruff and pulling it out from under the car while it squirms and tries to get away.

“It's okay, you're okay,” he soothes, cradling the puppy in his arms. It's tiny, probably only a few months old, some kind of husky or malamute cross, as far as he can tell, and soaking wet from the rain earlier in the day.

He bundles the puppy up into his jacket, holding onto it with one hand and grabbing his bag with the other before he hustles himself into the elevator, praying he doesn't run in to any neighbors – or worse, the building manager – before he can get to his apartment on the third floor.

Stiles manages to get into his apartment and close and lock the front door without dropping the wiggling little ball of damp fur and he dumps his bag on the couch on the way to the bathroom. He sets the puppy gently into the bathtub and watches for a few seconds while it tries and fails to climb up the smooth sides to get out. He laughs at its antics and pulls out his cellphone, hitting speed dial.

“ _Yo, bro,”_ Scott says when he picks up because he's still a teenager at heart, despite being married with a kid on the way.

Seriously, Scott with a kid, Stiles is still in denial.

“Hey, Scotty, listen, I found a puppy out in front of my building and I don't know what to do with it.”

“ _You found a puppy? That's so cute! What kind, what's it look like?”_

“I don't know, a husky, I think. Looks kinda wolf-like. Anyway, I'm not just calling to coo over how cute this thing is.”

“ _Is it a boy or a girl?”_

Stiles is brought up short. “Uh...I don't know actually.”

“ _Well, check.”_

Stiles switches the phone to speaker and lifts the puppy up above his head. “Oh, girl. Aren't you a cute little sweetheart?”

“ _Cute! Are you going to keep her?”_

Stiles rolls his eyes, even though he knows Scott can't see him. “No, Scott, I can't keep her. My building doesn't allow pets, you know that.”

“ _Oh, yeah.”_ He sounds upset at the thought. _“Wait, I can't keep her! I have a baby coming!”_

“Scotty, I didn't ask you to take her. You're a vet, you idiot. I wanted to know what to feed her until I can bring her to see you in the morning.”

“ _Oh.”_ That seems to stump Scott and he's silent for a few seconds before he answers. _“Uh, well, how old is she?”_

“A couple months, I'd say; three at the most. She's tiny, dude, she can't even get out of my bathtub.”

“ _Okay, well, do you have any, like cooked chicken breasts and plain rice?”_

Stiles grabs the phone and walks to the kitchen and checks the fridge and cupboards. “I have all of the ingredients to make those things.”

“ _Okay, boil everything, make sure it's really soft and has no added, like, salt or spices or anything. Don't give her lots, she's probably not weaned all that long, so she won't be able to stomach much, and then bring her down here in the morning.”_

“Will do. Later.”

Stiles hangs up and puts few pots on the burners and sets the chicken and rice to cook before returning to the bathroom.

The puppy is still trying to get out of the tub, but she's not having anymore luck and Stiles chuckles. “Alright, pretty lady, let's get you cleaned up and warmed.”

  


///

  


It takes a few hours to get the puppy cleaned, dried and fed and by the time she's sacked out asleep, it's too late for Stiles to even start to think about working on the cases he brought home.

Instead, he makes the puppy a bed in the corner of his room, complete with old pillows and blankets and towels, in case she has any sort of accident in the middle of the night.

Although, the moment she'd pawed at the door to Stiles' balcony in askance to be let outside, Stiles knows she's better house trained than even Stiles is now.

The puppy beds down quickly enough while Stiles gets ready for bed, putting on a movie for him to fall asleep to.

The draining day and the excitement of coming home all sort of take their toll on Stiles and he's asleep before Christian Bale has even put on the Batman costume.

  


///

  


He wakes up to the puppy cuddled up on his chest, fast asleep.

  


///

  


“So she's healthy?” Stiles asks as Scott checks the puppy over.

Stiles has decided to call her 'Rey' because he needs to call her something. He's decided he's not going to pay attention to the fact that she barks every time he uses it.

“It doesn't seem like she's underweight,” Scott answers, checking around Rey's rib cage. He puts a stethoscope in his ears. “Her heart and lungs seem to be functioning okay.”

“So you think she just escaped or something?” Stiles asks, chewing on his thumbnail nervously. “She wasn't, like...abandoned or anything?”

Scott shrugs and reaches for a handheld scanner. “Hard to say.” He sweeps the scanner over the back of Rey's neck. Nothing happens. “She doesn't have a microchip.”

Stiles frowns. “Well, what does that mean!?”

Yet again, Scott shrugs. “Maybe lots of things. Either her owners thought she was too young to get one, she might have been part of a litter that they were planning on selling and she got loose before they could do that. Or maybe she was born a stray and she just wandered away from her mother.” He grins. “Or she's a wolf and she escaped from her pack.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. Since he walked through the door with Rey wrapped up in an old blanket and cradled in his arms, Scott had crowed about how much she looked like a wolf. And it doesn't look like he's letting it go any time soon.

“She's not a wolf, Scott, I told you – there are no wolves in California. And she's a little young to have trekked all the way here from Yellowstone, or wherever the hell wolves actually live.”

“You do know that they have actually found a wolf pack in Lassen County, right? Near the border with Nevada?”

That shuts Stiles up for a few seconds until he shakes his head. “That...that doesn't matter, because it's still too far for a pup that small to travel. She's not a wolf, she's someone's lost pet.”

Scott just shrugs again, like he honestly doesn't care what Stiles thinks, he knows the truth. But if he shrugs his shoulders one more time, Stiles is going to remove them from his person.

“So, what are you gonna do now?”

“Make some fliers, I guess, wait a couple weeks. If no one's come to claim her by then, I'll look for a no-killer shelter to take her to.”

“Couldn't your dad take her?”

“Nah, he works too much, wouldn't be fair to leave her alone for all those hours every day. This is for the best.”

Scott nods, but he looks a little sad as he pets Rey's ears. She's fallen asleep on the examination table.

Stiles knows how he feels.

  


///

  


“Okay, can you sit like a good girl so that I can take your picture?” Stiles asks Rey, waving his cellphone at her.

She barks, like she's agreeing, and sits down in front of Stiles with her tongue lolling.

“I swear, it's like you can understand me,” Stiles mutters with a shake of his head.

He snaps a few photos, but they all come out blurry, like her eyes are reacting to the flash or something. He frowns.

“Stupid phone.” He knows that, sometimes, dogs eyes do weird things in photos, but he didn't think it could be this bad.

Rey barks again, and when Stiles looks back up at her, she has her head turned to the side. Curious, Stiles takes another few photos, not even a little bit surprised when they come out perfectly clear.

“I swear, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were some sort of supernatural creature, or at the very least, I do think you you can understand me.”

Rey yips as if in agreement, to which statement, Stiles doesn't know, so he just picks up his laptop and starts uploading the photos.

He posts a few to Facebook, mentions finding her outside his building. Then he puts together a flier, complete with his address and email. He sends it to himself, then pulls on his sneakers and picks up the leash Scott let him borrow from the clinic.

“Alright, little miss, how about we go for a little walk, huh?”

She lets out a noise that sounds suspiciously like agreement and stands perfectly still while Stiles puts the leash on her, then moves towards the front door.

Supernatural, he knows it.

He has to calm her down a little while he makes sure he has everything before he leaves, but soon they're on their way at a leisurely pace, and Stiles is really glad it's his day off and he can take his time. 

Still, it's not long before the Sheriff's station comes into view.

Everyone coos over Rey when they walk in the front door, and Stiles gladly leaves her with Deputy Graeme while he heads to his desk.

“Hey, son, what are you doing here?” Stiles' father, Noah, asks as he comes up behind Stiles, laying a hand on his shoulder.

Stiles loads up his email. “I found a puppy last night after I got off work. I made a flier to put up around town to find her owner and I came in to print it out and copy it, because I'm poor and have no printer.”

Noah chuckles. “You're far from poor, Stiles, but I'll concede to your second point, since I know you don't have a printer.”

Alright, so Stiles makes good money from his job, but he still has college loans to pay off. He's not going to waste money on a printer and ink and paper when he can do all the printing he wants, paid for by the county.

“I'm literally going to have to print hundreds of these things to be able to put them up all over town.” He frowns. “I'm gonna need some help. I wonder if Liam's home for the summer yet?”

“Nope. Melissa told me he wasn't coming home this year,” Noah tells him. “He's got some sort of internship and he can't get enough time off to make it home. His parents are flying out to him instead.”

Stiles pouts. “Doesn't he know he is seriously messing with my plans? How could he do that to me?”

Despite the fact that his father is standing behind him, Stiles still knows he's is rolling his eyes at him.

“Oh, yeah, Liam definitely should have known you would find a puppy and taken that into consideration before he took on something that was going to help him with his chosen career.” Noah claps Stiles on the shoulders again. “You know what, I actually think Mason and Corey are back, get them to help. Now, where is this little cutie-pie?”

He doesn't wait for Stiles to answer, just walks away towards the front of the station, leaving Stiles alone as he hits the 'print' button for two hundred copies. While he's waiting, he pulls out his phone and calls Mason.

Thirty minutes later, his handing Mason and Corey half of the fliers, a staple gun, a roll of tape and fifty bucks, all while trying to wrestle Rey out of his father's surprisingly strong grip.

“Come on, Stiles, you can just leave her here while you hang the fliers. She'll be fine.”

“Number one, what happens if you get called out or something? And two, she's a puppy, she pees a lot and she's already been inside for too long. I'm surprised she hasn't hand an accident already. You can come by after work to see her, if you like.”

Now it's Noah's turn to pout. “Fine.” He hands Rey over reluctantly, and Stiles is a little surprised at how reluctant Rey seems to be to leave him.

Finally, he gets her back and her leash back in place and he waves goodbye as he picks up everything and leaves. 

Everyone says goodbye to Rey and no one says it to Stiles.

He's not really surprised.

But when Stiles gets home a few hours later, all the fliers gone, and his dad is waiting for him with take-out for dinner and treats for Rey, he decides to forgive them all.

  


///

  


That night, Stiles doesn't even bother to put Rey to bed in the corner of the room. She automatically curls up in his bed and Stiles decides to leave her there.

  


///

  


Stiles is working the late shift at the station the next night. He knows it's weird, a crime scene tech working late into the night, but in a town as small as Beacon Hills, with as little as there is for a crime scene tech to actually do, he also has to cover a few shifts as an actual sheriff's deputy. Usually he'll cover the shifts to let Tara have a Saturday off with her family or the shifts his dad doesn't want to do, Friday nights he wants to spend with his new wife, Stiles' former high school teacher, Natalie Martin. 

They've been married for a few a while now, and Stiles gets along well with her. She'll never be his mom, but expanding their family to include Natalie and Lydia has been a good thing. 

After he got over how weird it was that suddenly Lydia, his high school crush, was his step-sister.

That said, Stiles' late start to his shift leaves him a lot of time to spend with Rey.

He marvels at how well trained she is. She never 'goes' inside, always pawing at the door to the balcony when she feels the urge and, when he lets her out, stares at Stiles until he turns away from her, giving her privacy. Whoever trained her, Stiles is sure they're missing her terribly.

He can only hope that her owners are actually from Beacon Hills, and not someone who was just passing through.

He hopes even more that she actually is lost, and not abandoned. He doesn't know what he'll do if no one comes for her. At this point, he might end up looking for a new place that allows pets.

“Now,” he says to Rey, hands on his hips as he looks down at where she's sprawled on what is technically his spot on the couch, “what am I going to do with you while I'm at work?”

Rey just yips at him, her eyes on the front door suddenly.

Stiles shakes his head. “No, you can't come with me, sweetie; I won't be able to keep you entertained all night. You'll just get restless and upset.”

He would call Scott again, and ask him and Kira if they could keep her for the night, but it's not going to be the last time Stiles works nights, so Rey is just going to have to get used to it.

He decides on the bathtub – one, because she can't actually get out of it, and two, because if she has any sort of accident, it'll be easier to clean it up when he gets back home. He's always exhausted after a night shift.

Stiles has just put her in the tub – with a few old towels and pillows piled at one end – when there's a knock at the front door, and Rey starts barking instantly, trying her best to climb out of the tub.

“Settle down, Rey,” Stiles scolds and heads to answer.

There's a handsome man standing in the hallway when Stiles pulls the door open, probably the best looking man Stiles has ever seen in real life and it takes him a few, powerfully long, seconds to find his voice.

“Uh, can I help you?”

The guy looks nervous, shuffling his feet, wringing his hands, and Stiles notices that he has one of the fliers crumpled in his fist.

Stiles' heart sinks a little. He knew that it would be too good to be true, that he would get to keep her, but he's going to need some solid evidence before he hands her over.

Not only is he a cop, he's the son of a cop.

“Hi, um, I'm sorry, my name is, um, Derek Hale. I saw one of your fliers in town, over by the grocery store, and I think you might have my d-dog?”

He phrases it like a question, like he's not sure the puppy in the flier is actually the puppy he's lost, but seriously, how many small, malamute-like puppies could have gone missing in this town in the last few days?

Stiles takes a step back. “Uh, yeah, sure, do you want-”

He's cut off by a childish squeal that originates from somewhere within his apartment and he turns in confusion, because he's almost sure the TV was playing some baseball game repeat.

And then, suddenly, there's a small, disheveled and very naked little girl shrieking her way through the living room, her dark unruly hair flying wildly behind her.

“Daddy!” she cries, running as fast as her little legs can carry her and the guy at the door drops to his knees.

“Percy!” He sounds relieved at having found a naked child in a stranger's house, and he hugs her close, his movement frantic and desperate.

“Uh...” Stiles says, somewhat lost for words, because, seriously, where did this child even come from?

“I'm sorry, Daddy, I got stuck and then I got scared because everything looked all weird and far away and I didn't know what to do!”

“Shush, shush,” the guy – Derek – soothes. “It's okay, Percy, it's okay. It's always scary the first time, I'm just sorry that we were so far away from home. You wouldn't be so scared at home, yeah?”

Suddenly shocked out of his stupor, Stiles clears his throat.

“Um,” he says when Derek and _Percy_ look up at him. “Maybe we should bring this inside and get the _naked child_ out of the hallway?”

Derek actually blushes a little, but he nods and gathers the little girl in his arms and shuffles inside past Stiles, who looks out into the hallway to make sure no one saw them.

Derek and Percy sit on the couch, talking softly, so Stiles leaves them to it for a moment and heads to his bedroom, grabbing an old sweater from the bottom drawer of his dresser.

Passing the bathroom on the way back, he's somehow not surprised to see that the bathtub is empty, even though he knows there's no way Rey was big enough to climb out of it on her own.

“Here,” he says when he reaches the couch, handing the sweater to Derek.

“Thank you,” he answers with an honest smile. He turns to Percy. “Put this on, baby.”

“Thanks, Stiles,” Percy says with a huge grin. “He's been really nice to me, Daddy. He made me chicken and took me on walks and let me sleep in his bed.”

“Oh, my God, don't say it like that!” Stiles cries, and then, Percy's words actually sink in and he collapses into an armchair. “Holy fu...udge, you were the puppy. That's actually what's happening right now. The puppy in my bathtub was a little girl.”

“I'm so sorry; I don't know what to say.”

Stiles looks over at Derek with wide eyes. “An explanation might be a start!”

Derek nods. “I'm Derek Hale, this is my daughter, Percy.” Percy waves at him brightly and Stiles can't help but wave back. “We're, um...we're werewolves.”

Stiles just nods, because...well, really, there's a kid sitting on his couch that was a puppy five minutes ago, what other explanation could there possibly be?

Well, Stiles could be having a nervous breakdown, but he likes to think he'd be a little more aware of it happening if that was the case.

“Werewolves,” he repeats, just to see how it feels in his mouth. “That's...huh.”

“Daddy?” Percy asks. “Why is Stiles' heart beating really, really fast?”

They can hear his heartbeat? From all the way across the room? Of course they can, they're werewolves, they can probably read his mind as well.

Derek clears his throat. “Um, you know what, Percy? I think we've wasted enough of Mr...um...Mr. Stiles' time. Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Cora and Aunt Laura and Uncle James and everyone else have all been so worried about you. Why don't we go see them, huh? You can tell them all about your adventure with Mr. Stiles.”

Percy claps her hands like this is the best idea she's ever heard and races for the door.

“Thank you,” Derek says again, looking so earnest and awkward that Stiles sort of wants to hug him. But, you know...werewolves. “I don't know what I would have done if anything had happened to her.”

Stiles can't find anything to say to that – his brain is still on 'holy shit, werewolves!' So Derek just gives him a tight smile and the next thing Stiles hears is the front door closing and suddenly, he's alone in his apartment.

How the hell is he supposed to go to work after this?

  


///

  


Two days later, Stiles comes home from another shift to find his sweater – freshly washed and ironed – sitting outside his front door next to batch of homemade brownies. 

It doesn't take a genius to work out who they're from.

Still, Stiles doesn't tell his dad that the brownies he takes to dinner that night were found on the floor of his hallway.

He also doesn't actually tell anyone about the whole thing in general. Just causally mentions that he found 'Rey's' owner.

He doesn't really want to think about why he's keeping a secret that's not even his.

  


///

  


It's been a week since Rey/Percy left with her father and Stiles has been trying really hard not to think about either of them.

It hasn't been all that difficult, really. A break-in at the high school and the subsequent missing computers had lead to all the crime scene techs working overtime to collect and eliminate fingerprints from the entire student body and faculty so that they could maybe isolate the ones left behind by the thieves.

Stiles comes home from work at the end of every shift absolutely exhausted and then he has to spend time working on a case from Willowfield County that he has to hand over before the end of the week.

He's fallen asleep at his desk more than once.

He's sitting there now, on a blessed day off from the station, when he hears a scratching at his front door. He ignores it at first, needing to concentrate.

But then something barks.

“What?” Stiles asks the empty room, then it clicks, and he groans. “Oh, God.”

Pushing himself away from his desk, Stiles hurries through the apartment and fumbles to pull open the front door.

He's completely unsurprised to see a puppy sitting in the hallway, tongue lolling, tail wagging.

“Percy,” Stiles sighs, scrubbing a hand across his face. “How did you even get into the building?”

He doesn't bother waiting for an answer, just scoops Percy up into his arms and takes her inside.

“Your dad must be going out of his mind,” he mutters as he drops her on the couch. Percy just settles down like she lives here and Stiles just rolls his eyes and picks up the phone.

“Hey, Danny,” he says as the call he places is answered. “Can you do me a favor?”

“ _Just once I'd like for you to call me when you don't want something, Stilinski.”_

“Aw, Danny, you know I love you.”

“ _What do you want, Stiles?”_

“Are you at work right now? I don't have a lot of time, so if you're not, I have to hang up and call someone else.”

Danny sighs. _“Yes, I'm at work, why?”_

“Can you look up Derek Hale's address?”

Danny grunts. _“Hale? You mean the family that lives in the Preserve?”_

“They live in the Preserve?” Stiles squints at Percy. “Like...in a cave or something?”

Seriously, with werewolves now in the picture, nothing would surprise him.

“ _No, Stiles, you moron. They own the land, so they, like, build houses when they need one, I guess?”_

“That sounds fake, but okay.”

“ _I think Derek lives in number five, or the fifth house on the...street, or whatever.”_

“Alright, Danny, thanks.”

“ _What do you need his address for? Are you dating him?”_

“If I was dating him, do you think I'd need to call the local Sheriff's office to get his address?”

There's a pause on the other end of the line. _“Okay, fair point.”_

“Gotta go, Danny, I'll bring donuts tomorrow.”

“ _You better.”_

Stiles hangs up and turns to find his shoes.

“Alright, Percy, time for us to go and see you dad.”

Percy's ears droop a little and Stiles chuckles, but he picks her up anyway, grabs his keys and jogs to the elevator and heads down to the Jeep.

The drive out to the Preserve is relatively short – he mentioned that Beacon Hills is a small town, right? – and he's soon driving down a long driveway that leads to a huge clearing dotted with houses.

A pack, he supposes, would want to stick together.

Drapes and blinds twitch as he drives past and he wonders how many visitors they get if one car can rouse suspicion. 

He pulls up behind a black soccer mom van and ignores the imploring look Percy gives him as he picks her up from the passenger seat. “Sorry, sweetheart, but I'd rather not risk your dad's wrath by letting you hang out at my house without him knowing where you are.”

He heads up the steps to the porch and isn't at all surprised when the door opens before his feet have even hit the welcome mat. He holds Percy by her armpits and hands her to her father.

“This is yours, I believe?”

Derek looks stunned, his eyes flicking from Percy to Stiles and back again. “I thought she was upstairs napping.”

“I found her clawing at my front door,” Stiles explains, turning the pup in his hands until he can look at her. He swears she pouts at him, then she quivers in his hands and the next thing Stiles knows, he's holding a naked four year old by her armpits.

“Oh, holy shit!” he mutters and drops her.

Of course she lands on her feet.

Stiles glares at Derek. “Can you make her stop doing that?”

Derek ignores him and crouches in front of his daughter. “Honey, you want to tell me what's going on?”

Percy grins. “I wanted to see Stiles so I jumped out my window and turned into a doggie and I found him! I was a good girl, Daddy, I looked both ways before I crossed the street just like Aunt Cora taught me!”

“She didn't teach you to sneak out without telling anyone,” Derek admonishes.

“That's great,” Stiles mumbles as he pushes past Derek and Percy and into the house, “you two hash this out, but I need to sit down.”

He maneuvers his way into the house, looking around until he finds the living room, and the comfy looking brown leather couch. He sinks into it, falling back into the cushions, and just lets himself relax for a few minutes. He scrubs his hands across his face and when he opens his eyes again, Derek and Percy are staring at him.

“Um...” Derek starts, but he doesn't seem to know where to go next.

“What?” Stiles asks, then shakes his head. “Uh, nope, I'm not leaving this time without an actual explanation. You can't just drop werewolves on me and then peace out without saying anything else. We're going to talk about it this time.”

“Stiles is staying?” Percy asks excitedly, bouncing on her bare toes.

“Um, for a little while, maybe,” Derek answers carefully. “Why don't you go upstairs and get some clothes, huh? We'll hunt down whatever ones you were wearing later.”

“Okay!” She skips off happily, tripping up the stairs, pausing halfway to pick up a stray teddy bear.

“I don't know how to...” Derek starts, waving a hand at Stiles. “I've never done this before.”

“Well, Derek, you're a smart boy, I'm sure you can figure it out.” Stiles gives Derek a smirk that morphs into a more honest smile when the man in question rolls his eyes.

But before Derek can get started with the discussion, a voice floats through the house from the front door.

“Derek? Are you home?”

Derek cringes and Stiles watches as he physically straightens up before turning to greet the newcomer.

“Everything's fine, Mom.”

'Mom?' Stiles mouths just as an older woman steps into his line of sight.

She's stunning, there's no other word to describe her. Tall and elegant with long dark hair that brushes the base of her spine, Mrs. Hale doesn't look old enough to have a son Derek's age. She carries herself with an elegance and grace that defies explanation and as Stiles locks eyes with her, he becomes acutely aware of the fact that she could make him disappear without a second thought before going back home to make dinner for her family and tuck her grandchildren into bed.

Stiles finds himself equal parts terrified and mesmerized.

“Mr. Stilinski,” she breathes, eyeing him carefully, “how surprising to find you in my son's house.”

“I'm sorry, have we met?” Stiles is glad he's not standing, he's pretty sure his knees are shaking.

“Oh, no, but I do know your father quite well. He's very proud of you, there are several pictures of you in his office.”

Stiles feels himself blush but he doesn't look away from her, just nods his head in some sort of agreement.

Behind his mother, Derek sighs. “Mom, Stiles is here because...because he found Percy when she went missing.”

Mrs. Hale's eyes sharpen as she gazes at Stiles. “I see. Well, it seems we owe you a debt of gratitude, Mr. Stilinski.”

“Stiles.”

She smiles at him and inclines her head. “Talia,” he offers in exchange.

Derek scratches at the back of his head. “I was just going to...” he trails off, like he doesn't know what he was going to do.

“You were just going to tell him everything,” she finishes for him, her piercing gaze turning to him. 

Derek shrugs. “He already knows, kind of. Percy shifted in front of him. Twice.”

Talia nods. “I see.” She narrows her eyes and Stiles and he swallows hard.

“I'm not...I mean you guys can trust me, I wont...I just want to...know...?”

She watches at him for a few long, painfully long, moments, before she smiles. It changes her face, her eyes lighting up and, if possible, she looks even younger.

“I know we can trust you, Stiles.”

Even Derek looks surprised by that and he stares at her as she turns to face him, but she simply smiles and cups his cheek for a few seconds before walking to the end of the stairs.

“Percy,” she says, her voice barely raised, “Eliot and Peyton are making cookies in grandma and grandpa's house...you want to come help?”

Percy comes tumbling down the stairs and bounces in front of Derek. “Daddy! Can I go? Please!”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

Stiles tunes them out as Talia and Percy prepare to leave, though he overhears phrases like 'bring her back in the morning' and 'give you time to talk everything out' and he figures Talia is giving Derek to option of explaining everything without Percy there to distract them.

And though he appreciates that apparently Talia trusts Stiles not to do anything to her son, he can't help but wish that Percy was still around to act as a buffer.

Derek's really hot, okay?

What feels like a second later, Derek drops onto the couch next to him and hands him a glass holding two fingers of clear liquid.

“Vodka,” Derek says to Stiles' questioning eyebrow. “I'm told it helps in these sorts of situations.”

Stiles grunts. “You say that like you've never tried it.”

“Alcohol doesn't really work on werewolves; our bodies metabolize it too fast for it to have any effect. I'd have to drink about three bottles of that stuff,” he nods towards the glass, “to even get tipsy.”

Stiles hums thoughtfully. “I don't know whether to feel bad for you that you've never experienced being drunk, or hate you for the fact that you've never experienced a hangover.” 

“From what I've seen of my human family members stumbling about like they're on a boat in the middle of a hurricane, I'm not sure I'm missing much on either of those points.”

“You have human family members?” Stiles asks with a frown. “I kinda thought that everyone in a werewolf family would be, you know, a werewolf.”

Derek shakes his head. “It's...you know, it's like anything really. If your parents are both tall, then it's genetically more likely that you'll be tall, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that you'll be short. Same with werewolves. Yes, it's the dominant gene, but that doesn't mean it can't miss one.”

“So how many people in your family are human?” Stiles asks.

“My older brother, a few cousins here and there.” Derek shoots him a grin. “Plus a few people who married in.”

It takes Stiles a moment to parse that sentence...and then he's squawking in indignation and shoving Derek into the arm of the couch. “You jackass!”

“What? You're the one assuming everyone in a werewolf family is related. We're not a bunch of inbred monsters.”

Stiles stares at the drink in his hands and, with a dismissive shrug, downs the entire glass in one go. “I think I'm going to need more of this to get through this conversation.”

Derek reaches down the other side of the couch and produces the bottle, setting it on the table in front of Stiles.

“Kinda need to be able to drive home, big guy.”

“I promise you'll walk out of here alive in the morning if you sleep in the guest room,” Derek tells him. “I mean, you took care of my daughter, it's only fair that I return the favor.”

Stiles pours himself another drink. “So, can you all turn into wolves like Percy?”

Derek inclines his head. “For most of us, the ability to shift comes when we're a little older, closer to double digits anyway. It seems like Percy's going to be...a little ahead of the curve.”

“She's, what...four? Three?”

“She just turned four, yeah. Why?”

“She looks like a puppy, dude. I guessed three months old, tops.”

Derek laughs. “A four year old wolf in real life is fully grown, Stiles, and would probably have puppies of her own. I known it's strange, finding out about all of this, but try to think a little less literally.”

“So she's gonna look like that every time she shifts? How old will she be before she looks like a grown wolf?”

“Like I said, Percy seems to be advancing fast, faster than we've ever seen in this pack. Her oldest cousin, Milo, my sister Laura's son, he just turned eleven and he's still struggling with his shift, but he looks like an adolescent wolf when he does get there. I'd say he has a few more years before he looks like me.”

Stiles can feel his eyes light up and he leans forward in excitement. “You can turn into a wolf! That totally didn't occur to me until this moment. Show me!”

“Stiles, I'm not going to turn into a wolf for you. I'm not a performing monkey.”

“Oh, come on, please? Just once? Since, you know, I've promised to keep this huge fucking secret for you?”

Stiles watches gleefully as Derek's sort of deflates and he knows the man – werewolf? – is caving to his request.

“Fine,” he huffs as he heaves himself to his feet – 

And reaches for his belt buckle.

“Whoa, hey, no, what are you doing?!” Stiles exclaims.

Derek smirks, like he knows just how fast Stiles' heart is now beating.

Shit, he can probably tell how attracted Stiles is to him as well, he really needs to ask more questions about this werewolf thing.

“If I'm going to shift, I have to get out of my clothes. Percy's still young, small, so her shift doesn't damage anything. Have you ever seen the size of a full grown wolf?” Stiles shakes his head. “They're bigger than a Great Dane and we're bigger than a normal wolf. If I shift in my clothes, they're gonna get shredded, and I just bought these jeans last month.”

“Okay,” Stiles squeaks and busies himself with swallowing what's still left in his glass. He reaches for the bottle again when he hears the sound of Derek's zipper and his pants hitting the floor.

Then there's no sound at all and Stiles looks up, curious.

His eyes meet electric blue, shining out from the face of a huge black wolf and Stiles is really glad he's sitting down.

“Wow,” he breathes. His hand reaches out to touch without his permission and he snatches it back quickly. Derek closes the distance between them and butts his head against Stiles' hand, so Stiles lets his fingers drag through Derek's fur. “Soft,” he says with a giggle, and oh, that vodka is hitting him fast, apparently.

Derek just stands there for a few seconds, letting Stiles drink him in, then he takes a step back and Stiles swears he sees him cock his eyebrow in a silent question that Stiles hears loud a clear.

“Oh, yeah, dude, you can change back now. Sorry.”

He looks away again just as Derek's body starts to rearrange itself and valiantly ignores the sounds of clothing being tugged on.

“Don't call me 'dude,” is the first thing Derek says when he's human again and he retakes his seat.

Awkward, awful silence reigns for a few minutes before it starts to get to Stiles and he blurts out the first thing that comes into his head.

“So, hey, what about Percy's mom? Is she around? Is she a werewolf, too?”

Derek shifts a little, like his uncomfortable with the question and Stiles wants to stuff it back into his mouth.

“Uh, Percy doesn't actually have a mom,” he answers finally, cringing as the words leave his tongue.

Stiles lets that hang in the air for a second, turning the sentence over and over in his mind, trying to decipher it, before his eyes grow wide and he rears back from Derek and into the back of the couch.

“Holy shit! Are you saying...can male werewolves...is that a thing?!”

“What? _No,_ Stiles! I didn't give birth to her! Are you out of your mind?!”

“I'm sorry! I just found out that werewolves are an actual thing! Excuse me for wondering if there are some more differences between them an us lowly humans.”

Derek's eyes flash blue again and he snaps some suddenly impressive fangs in Stiles' direction. Stiles laughs loudly and claps his hands.

“Awesome!”

“You are a weird human. Most people run away as fast as their legs can carry them,” Derek points out, his voice low and contemplative.

Stiles shrugs. “I'm not most people.”

“I'm starting to get that, yeah.”

There's something in Derek's expression as he gazes at Stiles that Stiles can't really define, but it makes him feel warm all the same. But he doesn't have the energy to decode it right now.

“So...” he presses on anyway, “if you didn't give birth to Percy, I assume that means that she does have a mother out there somewhere. If you and she aren't...together, or whatever, where is she?”

“At Penn State, last I heard.”

“She's at college? She must have been...” Stiles trails off, uncomfortable with voicing the thoughts in his head, but Derek seems to know what he was going to say.

“I didn't sleep with a teenager, Stiles. God, what the hell do you take me for?”

“Well, then, stop talking in riddles and give me a straight answer!”

“Hayden got pregnant when she was seventeen. Both she and her boyfriend are bitten wolves, they weren't born like this the way I was, the way my parents and sisters were, so we weren't sure if the baby would be born human or wolf. Raising a baby while trying to go to college is hard enough as it is, raising a werewolf baby while trying to attend college would have been unthinkable. Hayden didn't want to give up on college, so she decided to give the baby up.”

“That must have been a tough decision for her to make,” Stiles says softly and Derek nods.

“Yeah, but the thing is, you can't just put a werewolf baby into the foster system and let her be adopted by people who know nothing about us.”

Stiles thinks about that for a few minutes, imagines how a normal human person – someone who isn't Stiles – would have reacted to Percy shifting in the middle of their living room.

“It would probably cause some issues, I guess. Is that why you decided to adopt her?”

“Not at first. My mom asked, of course. I'm single, yeah, but I have a good job, I'm capable of raising a child, but I didn't want to make that commitment unless I absolutely had to. My older sister, Laura, has two kids of her own at that point, my brother, James, is a marine – was a marine, he's out now – and Cora, my younger sister, is just...not ready for kids. Everyone else...their kids were already grown, teenagers, mostly, it wouldn't have been fair to expect them to start all over again. I was the logical choice, and yes, I wanted kids, eventually, I just...I just wanted...” Derek sighs in frustration.

“You wanted it to be on your terms.” Stiles find the words for him and he smiles, grateful.

“Exactly. So I told my mom that I would only take Percy if it turned out that she was a wolf. The possibility was so remote, I thought I was in the clear.”

Stiles grins. “And then Percy came out and was all, like 'surprise, Daddy!'” He makes jazz hands and Derek laughs.

“Yeah, something like that. I don't regret it, though, I'll never regret Percy, she's the best thing that's ever happened to me and I can't believe there was a time where I thought I didn't want her.”

“She's a great kid, Derek, seriously. I don't even know either of you that well, and I can tell that you're doing a great job with her. Even when she turns into a puppy and treks across town to sneak up on unsuspecting deputies.”

Derek groans and buries his face in his hands. “I'm so sorry about all of that, I...I seriously do not know what's wrong with her, she seems to have form a really attachment to you, Stiles.”

“I don't mind. Like I said, she's a great little girl. I just want to get to know the actual little girl and not the puppy.”

“We'll work on that,” Derek laughs.

“So, what about her birth parents? Does she ever see them? Does she know about the whole adoption?”

Derek grows somber and he shakes his head. “No, she doesn't know anything. That was probably the hardest thing about the adoption, Hayden and Liam having to leave the pack. Werewolves rely heavily on their sense of smell. We can smell emotions, our family has a specific scent that helps us to identify them easily, if we're hurt or something. It's all pretty much our basic way of life.”

Suddenly, Stiles understands. “She would know that you weren't her real parent, she would be able to smell her connection to Hayden.”

Derek nods. “I mean, it's possible to adopt within a pack and have the birth parents stick around, but they have to acknowledge the child, even if they only have a casual relationship. Hayden and Liam didn't think they would be able to do that, have that halfway relationship with Percy. It was all or nothing for them, so they chose nothing.”

Stiles shakes his head sadly, wondering how hard it was to give up your own kid, even if you were just a kid yourself.

“Where are they now? Her birth parents?”

“My mom, she's the Alpha of our pack, our leader, so she helped them to relocate. Hayden, like I said, she's at Penn State, and my mom helped her get settled with the local pack there. Liam's with another pack, at Columbia. Close enough to each other that they can negotiate within their new packs if they decide they want to be together in the future.”

“Well, that's something, at least,” Stiles whispers to himself. And then something occurs to him. “Wait, Hayden Romero and Liam Dunbar?”

“Yeah, you know them?” 

“Yeah! I used to babysit them. I didn't know they were werewolves!”

Derek rolls his eyes. “They haven't always been, Stiles. Just the last...five or so years, I guess? Hayden received the bite about a year or so before she got pregnant, Liam about three months after that.”

“What...how...you're just running around turning unsuspecting teenagers into fairy tale creatures?!”

“Number one, only an Alpha can turn someone into a werewolf, so my mom was the one doing the biting. And number two, there were extenuating circumstances.”

“Like what?”

“Like Hayden was rejecting a kidney transplant and would have been dead within months.”

Stiles feels his breath seize in his throat. He remembers that, remembers visiting her in the hospital with his dad and Scott, remembers Hayden's sister, Deputy Clark, confiding in him that the surgery hadn't worked and wondering how she would cope if Hayden died.

He also remembers seeing Hayden skipping down the street two weeks later, looking the picture of health and spinning a story about new meds.

“What about Liam?”

Derek snorts. “He fell off a roof. Liam's parents house has one of those roof garden things, and the two of them went up their for some romantic fumble or whatever, and he slipped. Hayden called my mom instead of an ambulance.”

Stiles scrubs his hands over his face again. “Okay, can I ask one more question and than I promise I'll be done and then I'll get drunk?”

Derek looks a bit nervous. “Uh, sure...?”

“What the hell made you give you're daughter a name like Percy?”

Derek laughs loudly. “That was Hayden's one request, that she got to name her daughter before she gave her away. I was kinda blanking when it came to names, so I agreed. At least until I heard it and then I had no choice but to go along with it. Persephone. I gave her the middle name Anna, after my late grandmother.”

“Persephone,” Stiles snorts.

“Yeah. It grew on me and everyone else liked it and it worked. For a while.”

Stiles frowns. “What happened?”

“She started talking.” Stiles laughs and Derek nods. “Yeah, exactly. She just couldn't manage it. The best she could do was Percy. So Cora just decided that's what she was going to call her and after a few months she refused to answer to anything else and that was it. I think it's cute, it suits her, but I'll bet anything Hayden would be outraged.”

Stiles throws his head back and laughs. “She's my female counter part!”

Derek blinks. “Come again?”

“Did you really think my parents put 'Stiles Stilinski' on my birth certificate?”

The werewolf blushes. “I didn't want to presume.”

“My name is Mieczyslaw.”

“Mietch...”

Stiles grins. “Do you want to try and spell it?”

“I really don't.”

“When I learning to talk, the best I could do was Mischief, so that's what my parents called me. When I started kindergarten, even the teachers made fun of me. 'Mischief by name, mischief by nature'. I had ADHD, I was a difficult child, I can fully admit that.” He winces, embarrassed. “Then, the summer before first grade, my grandfather came to visit. His name was Stiles and I thought that was so cool. So after that, that's what I demanded everyone called me. My dad wasn't really impressed, he never really got along with his dad, hence why he never took on the family nickname. But, after a couple months, like Percy, it just stuck and...” he throws his arms in the air, “here we are.”

They lapse into silence for a while, both of them lost in their own thoughts while Stiles continues to drink.

Finally, Stiles lets out an explosive breath and slams his glass onto the coffee table.

“This is wild. My whole world view has changed in a matter of days. This is unbelievable.”

Derek stays quiet at that. He must know what Stiles is going through, must have gone through it with dozens of people over the years as new members were brought into the...into the _pack_ – people like Liam and Hayden.

Stiles thinks about how his outlook on the world will have to change – if werewolves exist, what else is out there? Vampires? Ghosts? Demons?

The world is suddenly a million times bigger and Stiles is suddenly a million times smaller.

Derek leans forward and refills Stiles glass, then passes over. 

Stiles swallows it down without a word.

  


///

  


He doesn't remember falling asleep or even going to bed, but when Stiles opens his eyes, he's in a room he doesn't recognize and his pants and shoes are sitting neatly on a chair nearby.

He groans and falls back against the pillow. Despite all the alcohol, he remembers most of what what happened the day before, right up until he started questioning Derek about Dracula. After that, it's all a blur.

Quickly, he gets out of bed and pulls on his jeans and Chucks and starts trying to figure out how to sneak out of a werewolf's house so that he can avoid the embarrassment of running into one.

Unfortunately, Derek is already awake and making breakfast when Stiles finally finishes creeping down the stairs. Unnecessarily, it seems.

“Morning, Stiles,” he calls from the kitchen and Stiles had completely forgotten that werewolves can hear better than humans.

Taking a deep breath, Stiles crosses the hallway and leans against the doorway. “Sorry,” he mumbles, “if I did anything last night to make you uncomfortable.”

Derek looks up from the stove, where he seems to be making french toast. “You didn't.”

“Oh, well...that's good, because I have what my dad calls Foot-in-Mouth disease, so I tend to offend people a lot.”

Derek just chuckles and sets a plateful of food on the breakfast bar. “Dig in.”

Stiles checks his watch and cringes. “Man, I wish I could, because this all looks amazing, but I have to be at work in a couple hours and I don't even know if my uniform is clean.”

Derek just nods, unconcerned, and turns to the coffee maker to pour some into a travel coffee mug he pulls out of a nearby cupboard. He sets it in front of Stiles along with milk and sugar while he pulls a piece of toast from the pan and sets it on a napkin, turning off the burners.

“Can't go to work on an empty stomach.”

“Thanks, man,” Stiles says as he adds milk to his coffee. “And thanks for yesterday. I didn't mean to get so drunk. I promise, all your secrets are safe with me.”

Derek gives him a knee-weakening grin. “I know they are.”

Before he can second guess himself, Stiles grabs the notebook he spots stuck to the fridge and scribbles down his number.

“In case Percy goes missing again, you can call me and I'll see if she's around.”

Derek gives him another blinding grin and Stiles grabs his food and races out the door before he can do something stupid, like kiss Derek senseless.

  


///

  


Stiles is at work later that evening when someone appears in front of him, startling him.

“Sorry,” Talia Hale says, sounding anything but.

“It's fine,” he says with a dismissive wave, “I didn't need those five years you just scared off my life. What can I do for you, Mrs. Hale?”

She regards him coolly for a few seconds before she speaks. “I thought I told you to call me Talia?” There's a teasing lilt to her tone, one Stiles can't parse, so instead of answering her, he gestures to his uniform, and lets that answer for him.

Talia seems to understand anyway and just nods her head.

“Percy speaks quite highly of you,” she says at length, her gaze roaming around the room. “You left quite an impression on her, despite the fact that she spent the majority of her time with you as a wolf cub.”

“I think it was just the excitement of her new...” Stiles trails off at the word 'trick' and scrambles for something else to say. The last thing he wants is to be accused of making dog jokes. “Skill,” he says finally and Talia's lips twitch. “Well, that coupled with being somewhere new and getting away with things she probably can't at home. I think I was a very small factor in her epic adventure.”

Talia laughs. “It was certainly that. Three days the pack spent looking for her, the rain washed away her scent so we couldn't track her. It took Derek seeing one of your fliers for us to catch a break.”

Stiles raises his hands in innocence. “Hey, I just thought she was a puppy, I just wanted to find her home.”

“I've never seen someone so relieved as Derek was when he spotted her picture.”

Stiles smiles at the image she paints in his mind. “He's a good dad, and she really loves him.”

“It worked out well, that whole situation. It could have been a lot worse.”

The phone on Stiles' desk rings loudly in the stillness of their conversation and Stiles excuses himself to answer it, speaking in clipped tones with the person on the other end of the line.

“I'm keeping you from your work,” Talia apologizes when he hangs up.

Stiles wants to say 'no', but the truth is that she really is. “Was there something specific you came by for?”

“Oh, no, not really. I just wanted to thank you in person for taking care of my granddaughter, and for giving Derek the opportunity to explain everything to you. It means a lot that you actually listened.”

“I meant what I said, you know; I'm not going to tell anyone about any of this.”

“Well, you may want to tell your father now. He knows we're 'different',” she uses finger quotes around the word while Stiles just gapes, “but you should probably fill him on the details he's missing.”

“Are you serious?!” Stiles screeches. “My dad knows?!”

“Not everything, obviously, but we had to do something, Stiles. Being a werewolf isn't all sunshine and roses, your father and the rest of the department aren't exactly equipped to handle rogue werewolves or the like.”

“I don't believe this. You are telling me everything. Everything, you hear me?”

“Oh, I know that. You should stop by for dinner sometime, meet the rest of the pack. Your father, too, of course. I have a feeling you'll all get along well.”

Stiles sighs loudly, but he can't hide the slip on his lips. “I'd like that a lot, actually.”

“Good, I'll let Derek set it up.” She turns to leave and something occurs to Stiles so he calls her back.

“Can you give this to Derek?” he asks, passing over the travel mug. “He let me borrow it the other day, but I haven't had a change to get it back to him.”

She takes it was a secretive smile and a nod of her head. “Take care, Stiles.”

She leaves as quietly as she arrived, and Stiles is left staring blankly at the door, wondering what the hell that was all about, before his computer beeps, telling him it needs his attention.

  


///

  


Stiles stares at the piece of paper in front of him and absolutely does not giggle like a twelve year old over his usage of the words 'lupine' and 'Cudjo'. If any of the Hale pack happened to work for the police department in Willowfield County, they'd all know that the crime scene tech for Beacon County was definitely 'in the know'.

He makes his own fun.

His cellphone rings just as he's putting the final touches to the case, and he stares at the unknown number flashing up on the screen. It's not uncommon for Stiles to get calls like these, from people in the town who have somehow managed to get a hold of his phone number and now have a burning question to ask him at nine thirty on a Thursday night. 

Still, Stiles girds his loins and answers.

"Stiles Stilinski," he says clearly, trying to keep the weariness out of his tone.

_"Uh, hi,"_ the caller says, voice wobbling, _"this is Derek. Hale."_

Instantly, Stiles sits up straighter in his chair, his demeanor changing completely. "Hi, how-how are you?"

_"I'm fine, Stiles. And you?"_

Stiles looks at the mess of papers in front of him and cringes. "Can't complain, I guess. What can I do for you?" Reasons for Derek calling so late at night flash through his head. "Oh, God, is Percy missing again?"

Derek actually chuckles. _"No, no, she's tucked up on the couch beside me as we speak. She's safe."_

Stiles deflates a little. "Oh, then why..."

_"Actually, I was wondering...um, well, I mean, I was calling to ask if you...if you would like to have dinner with me?"_

I...seriously?" the words are out of his mouth before he realizes how incredulous he sounds and he can almost hear Derek slumping over the phone. 

_"I mean, you don't have to, it was just...a thank you, for-for Percy."_

"I'd love to!" stiles blurts out before Derek can talk himself out of it anymore.

_"Seriously?"_ Derek repeats with a laugh. _"I mean, like...a date. I'm asking you to go on a date with me."_

"Yes, absolutely. Although, I don't really understand why, but I'm gonna lock you into this before you come to your senses."

Derek chuckles again and Stiles feels a thrill at the sound of it. _"Why don't we talk about it at dinner. Are you free tomorrow? I'll pick you up?"_

"Sounds good."

_"Say around seven?"_

"I'll be ready."

_"See you then."_

Derek stays on the line, almost like he can't make himself hang up and Stiles feels like he's fourteen again, going on his first date with Heather.

Finally, Derek chuckles to himself and hangs up without saying anything else and Stiles tries and fails to go back to his case.

  
  


///

  
  


Dinner was...dinner was great. They had fun, they laughed, they talked, discussed everything from embarrassing childhood memories to college pranks and favorite baseball teams.

Now, Derek is pulling up outside Stiles' apartment building again, shutting off the engine and turning to face Stiles and Stiles can't help but smile at him.

“I had a great time,” Derek says with a slow grin. “I hope I can say the same for you?”

“Definitely,” Stiles agrees, “we'll have to do it again sometime.”

Derek rolls his eyes at the cheesy line and Stiles laughs loudly.

“Seriously, though, I did have a really great time tonight, and would like to see you again, if you would be amenable to that.”

“I would be very amenable to that. Maybe...maybe we could...” Derek cringes, like he's not sure about the next words he's going to say. “Maybe we could do something...with Percy?”

“Are you kidding? I would love that. I told you, I already know wolf-Percy pretty well. Or, Rey, as I was calling her at the time.”

“You named my daughter's wolf form after a _Star Wars_ character?” Derek interrupts.

Stiles pauses. “I'm not gonna lie, the fact that you know who Rey is? Kinda a big turn on for me, big guy.” Derek snorts, while Stiles continues. “I wanna get to know human-Percy. I understand that she's a huge part of your life, Derek, so I would never try to pretend that you and me dating would never involve her in some way.”

Derek lets out a sigh of relief and Stiles takes a moment to wonder how many people Derek has dated who didn't want to deal with the fact that Derek was a father. 

Given the good looks that Derek was blessed with, Stiles thinks it might have been more than one or two.

“Okay, so maybe we could go on a picnic or something? Percy's going to be finished school for summer in a couple weeks.”

Now it's Stiles' turn to cringe. “I'm on nights for the next week or so, but maybe we could do breakfast or something?”

Derek nods. “That...that sounds great.” He turns to face the steering wheel again and starts picking at it nervously. “There's also something else I wanted to ask you, but I know that it's gonna seem a little fast. Maybe. I mean, you can say 'no', I'm not...this isn't a mandatory thing.”

“Derek, just ask.”

“My mom's hosting this barbecue thing next month. She does it every year at the start of summer, sort of celebration for the pack and some close friends. I'd like it if you could come and meet everyone?” He phrases it like a question, which Stiles finds very endearing.

“I'd love to come. I mean, assuming I'm not working. Text me the dates and I'll check, but, yeah, meeting a whole bunch of werewolves sounds like fun.”

Even in the dark interior of the car, Stiles can see that Derek is blushing.

“It'll...this will actually be the first time I've brought someone who actually knows everything, so I'm sure everyone will be happy that they won't have to pretend or hide the little ones away.”

“Then I really hope I can make it.”

He sits in the car for another few heartbeats, his eyes roving over Derek's face. Stiles wants to kiss him, taste him, feel that stubble against his skin, but he holds himself back. It's too soon for that, too soon for the images and wants that are flashing through Stiles' head.

He could only sit in the front seat of Derek's very practical soccer dad car and hope that they'll get to that point eventually. 

“So...I had a really great ti-” Stiles cuts himself off, blushing hotly, while Derek laughs loudly. “I already said that, didn't I?”

“You did, but I don't mind hearing it again.”

“I'm gonna go,” Stiles says shortly, his hand already on the handle of the door, “before I embarrass myself even more. Um, call me, I guess? When you want to go out again? If, _if_ you want to go out again.”

“ _When_ I want to go out again,” Derek confirms and Stiles escapes before he can do anything stupid.

  
  


///

  
  


“Deputy Stilinski, can I see you in my office for a minute?”

Stiles freezes at his desk as the whole bullpen goes silent and everyone turns to stare at him. His dad very rarely refers to him as Deputy Stilinski, even at work or at a crime scene. Stiles grew up in this station, most people who work here have known him since he was a child, so trying to force the people who once saw Stiles getting dragged through the station in handcuffs after a childhood prank gone wrong to respect him was a tough sell at the best of times. Pretending that he wasn't the Sheriff's son only added to that, so they stopped trying.

The only time Noah referred to him by his status as a deputy was when Stiles had done something really wrong. And now, sitting there at his desk, Stiles tries to wrack his brain to force some sort of memory lose that might give him some indication as to why his father appears to be so angry at him.

“Now, Deputy,” the Sheriff adds when Stiles shows no sign of moving and across the room, Deputy Erica Boyd lets out a low whistle, which causes some other people to chuckle nervously.

Slowly, Stiles pushes away from his desk and averts his eyes as he makes his way across to his dad's office, closing the door behind him.

His dad is already seated behind his desk and he gestures to the chair in front and Stiles sat down slowly, his eyes never leaving his father, who in turn was staring at what looked to be a photo in his hands.

“Dad?” Stiles asks, somewhat timidly and his father sighs.

“Care to explain this to me, son?” Noah says, passing over the photo face down.

Stiles swallows hard, his mind going into overdrive trying to think about what could possibly have caused his father to become so angry with him. His hands are shaking when he takes the photo and slowly, he turns it over.

“Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me,” he says, slumping back into his seat.

He stares at the picture while his father cracks up on the other side of the desk, laughing hysterically at his son's reaction.

“You should have seen your face,” he says through his guffaws and Stiles just throws the photo of him and Derek entering the restaurant the night before at him.

“How did you even get that?” Stiles asks, gesturing to the photo.

Noah tries to sober. “Parrish was at a robbery at the liquor store on the corner, saw the two of you pass by the window. He followed you outside and took that with his cellphone when he saw you go into the restaurant. He sent it to me this morning and I printed it out.”

“You are a cruel father, you know that? And Parrish!” He yells, raising his voice and turning towards the door to the office. “I'll get you back for this, I swear to God!”

“Keep you pants on, he's not here,” the Sheriff says with a wave of his hand.

Stiles sinks back in his chair and levels a glare at his father, who just rolls his eyes.

“So, you're dating Derek Hale?” he asks with a faux sort of casual.

Stiles shrugs. “Can you call it 'dating' if it's only been one date?”

“Did the date go well and do you want to go on another date some time in the near future?”

Stiles blushes. “Yeah, I really do.”

“Then I'd call that dating.” Noah reaches across the desk and picks up the photo, smiling at it and Stiles can understand why. He looks happy in the picture and Noah Stilinski has always said that the only thing he really wants for his son is for him to be happy. But then he sighs and Stiles starts to panic.

“What? What's that noise for?”

“Nothing, I'm just assuming that this is the reason Talia Hale paid me a visit yesterday.”

Stiles pales and grows uncomfortable. “She did? What did she say?”

“That she didn't know if you would be able to follow through with explaining everything. She said she thought that you wanting to keep me safe might push you to keep secrets.”

Stiles falls back in his chair. “She was probably right. I couldn't even think of a way to start the conversation.”

His dad sighs again. “You know, I've always known that there was something a little...off about this town. When I first got elected, the previous Sheriff and Talia paid me a visit, told me that there were things in this town that I wouldn't be able to deal with and that she, Talia, would be more than willing to...tidy things up. If I agreed to turn a blind eye to certain things, she would help with my re-election.” Noah shrugs and rubs at his eyes.

“And you agreed?”

“It didn't seem like such a big deal. Beacon Hills is a quiet town, nothing much ever really happens here.” He pauses, like he's thinking. “In fact, there was only ever one incident that I can think off, where that family asked me to step aside. Something attacked a couple camping the Preserve, she told me I was out of my depth and that I should let her handle it. I just didn't think the thing I couldn't handle was werewolves.”

Stiles nods. “Yeah, it's a bit of a mind trip, right?”

“How did you find out? Talia never said.”

Stiles laughs loudly. “You remember that puppy I found? Rey?”

Noah's eyes grow wide. “That was a person?! They can do that?!”

“Yeah, evidently. The puppy was actually Derek's daughter, Percy. I found out when she went streaking through my living room when her father knocked on my front door. It was a...moment, I'll tell you that.”

The Sheriff sags in his chair. “That's...wow. When Talia said 'werewolves', I was...well, I don't really know what I was expecting, probably something like that awful eighties movie where they grow hair everywhere.”

Stiles laughs again. “It takes a while to get used to, I'll tell you that.”

“Are you going to this barbecue thing that Talia's hosting?”

“Uh, yeah, Derek invited me, he wants me to meet the rest of the pack.”

“Jesus, _pack_ , this is...this is something out of a sci-fi show.”

“I think it would be more horror story, if we're going to be genre-ally accurate.”

“That's not a word, Stiles.”

“I know, but it was fun to use.”

“I'm going and you are not to leave me alone the entire time we're there, do you understand me?”

“Dad! Come on! The guy I'm maybe dating invited me to meet his family, I'm not going to hang out with my father the whole time! Bring Natalie!”

Noah shakes his head. “No, I'm not telling Natalie about this until I understand it all a bit more.”

Stiles wags his finger. “I'm petty sure keeping secrets from your wife wasn't in your wedding vows and I should now, I was there when you married her.”

“Yeah, well, until I know more about what the hell is going on, Natalie's staying in the dark.”

Stiles sighs. “Alright, fine, but if you mess up my game with Derek, I swear to God, I'mma tell her everything. You hear me?”

The Sheriff waves him off. “Yeah, yeah, go get back to work.”

“Work,” Stiles says with a snort. “I'm literally sitting here playing Candy Crush on my phone.”

Noah groans. “I don't want to hear that, Stiles, just...just go.”

He waves his son away and Stiles dutifully follows his orders, returning to his desk in the bullpen.

“Well, this is gonna be real interesting,” Erica says as she passing by his chair, and when Stiles tips his head back to look at her, she has a smug smile on her face that makes the hairs on the back of Stiles' neck stand up straight.

  
  


///

  
  


  
  


After a major discussion in his dad's driveway about how incredibly inappropriate it would be to show up at a barbecue in the Sheriff's patrol car, Stiles and Noah eventually turn up at the Hale's about a hour later than he said they'd be.

“So,” he says, blowing out a breath as he parks the Jeep and stares at the scene around them.

The whole of the Hale's little village in the middle of the forest had been turned into the hosting area for their party. People are milling around everywhere, kids chasing each other around, multiple adults grilling at multiple grills, the smell of food in the air is making his stomach rumble. 

“I don't think I'm ready for this,” Noah gripes as he undoes his seat belt and gets out.

Stiles follows his father out of the vehicle and just as he's slamming the door closed, a wired squeal pierces the air, followed by someone loudly choking on whatever they were eating.

Turning, Stiles scans the people around him until, finally, his eyes settle on a picnic bench set up in the front yard of the house next to Derek's and his mouth drops open in shock.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

Sitting at the table, tucking into what looks to be some amazing burgers and salad and looking increasingly uncomfortable, are Jordan Parrish, one of his father's deputies, Jackson Whittmore, a guy Stiles went to high school with, Scott and his wife, Kira, and, worst of all, Lydia, Stiles' step-sister.

“What the hell are you doing here?!” Stiles yells at the same moment Lydia and Scott pull themselves to their feet.

“I was just about to ask you that,” Lydia says, her voice high and tight, making it completely obvious how nervous she is. She casts her eyes to some point over Stiles' left shoulder, and he knows his father is now standing right behind him.

“We were invited!” Stiles yells. “What's you excuse?”

“They're part of this pack,” Noah says, his voice still catching on the word.

Stiles grows more incredulous. “What?! Since when?!”

Lydia waves. “Hi, Pops.”

“Lydia. Mind explaining a little bit for us?”

Her eyes flick between Stiles and Noah while Scott continues to stare wide-eyed at Stiles. Behind them, Parrish, Jackson and Kira have gone back to their food. 

“Um, so you...know,” Lydia says slowly. “About...everything?”

“Well, clearly not everything considering I didn't know my two best friends in the whole wide world are part of a werewolf pack!” he gapes. “Are you both werewolves? Are you all werewolves!?”

“No,” Lydia says, calmer now, “well, I mean, Scott and Jackson are, yes, but the rest of us are...not.”

Parrish raises his hand from where he's still sitting at the table. “I'm a hellhound.”

“What...what even is that? What does that mean?” Noah asks.

The hand Parrish is still holding in the air suddenly bursts into flame, causing both Stiles and Noah to take a step back. Parrish just shrugs and returns to his food, like he didn't just out himself as a supernatural creature to his boss.

“I'm a kitsune,” Kira says brightly. “It's a long story, but basically, I can control electricity? Sort of? I can do a lot more, but...yeah.”

Stiles narrows his eyes at his step-sister. “And you? Are you gonna stand here and tell me your the Abominable Snowman? Woman?”

Lydia rolls her eyes. “I'm a banshee. I can sense death.”

Stiles eyes practically bug out of his head and behind him, Noah curses loudly. 

“I need a drink.” He walks off without another word. So much for never leaving Stiles' side.

Stiles turns his attention and ire to Scott. “Werewolf? Seriously?”

“I wasn't allowed to say anything! That's literally how packs work. I asked Talia and Laura, more than once, if I could tell you, but they always said there wasn't a reason you needed to know.”

“How long?”

“Couple years?” he cringes.

“What!?”

“It was just after I'd proposed to Kira, remember? And I had a massive asthma attack, ended up in the hospital for a couple days?”

“Yeah, I remember, Scott, you almost died, it's kinda hard to forget.”

Scott winces. “Yeah, well, afterward, Kira approached Talia Hale; she'd already told me about what she was and everything, since we were planning a wedding, and she told Talia everything, and Talia agreed to give me the bite and let me join the pack.”

“I can't believe you kept this from me! I can't believe you _could_ keep this from me! I mean, you told me the second you found out that Kira was pregnant and then I had to act surprised when you had that whole big party thing to tell everyone.”

“Scott!” Kira cries, while Lydia rolls her eyes again and Jackson and Parrish snort into their drinks.

“I didn't...I don't...I mean.” Scott deflates. “How did you find out anyway?”

The memory causes Stiles to smile. “Remember that puppy I found a couple weeks ago? The one you were so sure was an actual wolf when I brought her to your office?”

Scott grows pale. “She was a werewolf? A werewolf from this pack?! Oh, my God.”

Jackson and Parrish are practically rolling on the grass they're laughing so hard and even Lydia looks amused.

“Dude,” Parrish says through his chuckles, “you couldn't recognize a member of the pack in wolf form? How did you not even hear about Percy going missing?”

“It was _Percy_? Well, how the hell was I supposed to know?! Talia said kids that age wouldn't be able to shift, that it was a puberty thing. We went over all this when she told us what to expect if the baby's a werewolf.”

“I can't believe you didn't notice the granddaughter of the Alpha when she was sitting right in front of you,” Lydia scolds.

Scott pouts again. “No wonder she's been so weird to me all day.”

“So, you're a werewolf?” Stiles asks, because seriously, this is hard to get his head around. “You can do the whole bit? Turn into a wolf and everything?”

Scott pouts, but it's Jackson who answers from the table. “Nah, that's just for born wolves like us; pretty boy here is bitten, he just gets the glowy eyes, pointy teeth and claws.”

Stiles leans to one side to peer around Scott. “Born? You're a born werewolf? What about Malia?”

Jackson shrugs. “Let's just say it's a family trait.” He pauses for a second, head cocked to one side and Stiles has to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from making a dog joke. “Though, Malia's a werecoyote, not a wolf”

“What's the difference?”

“Not much, to me honest, but she likes the distinction.”

Stiles throws his hands in the air. “It's like my whole life is a lie.”

“Uh, I see you've been making yourself at home,” a voice behind Stiles says and he turns to see Derek standing behind him. “Do you, uh, do you know these guys?”

Stiles glares and turns back to his so-called friends. “My sister,” he says, pointing to Lydia, “my almost brother,” he says to Scott, “practically my sister-in-law,” Kira waves, “and whatever the hell these two are to my sister.” He scowls at Parrish and Jackson. “Like, seriously, what are you? Polyamorous? An open relationship? A threesome? I don't even care, just come clean already.”

The three of them look incredibly uncomfortable again and turn their eyes back to their food. Serves them right, Stiles thinks.

“Oh,” Derek says, sounding apologetic, “I don't know what to say.”

Stiles gestures around him, at Erica and Boyd, Isaac and Aiden and Ethan. “Everywhere I turn, I see people I know. People I work with, went to school with, dated.”

“Dated?” Derek asks, his voice high and tight.

Stiles points to one of the grills and the woman standing behind it, snarling at a teenager trying to steal a chicken wing. “Malia. We dated in high school for a while. I'm starting to understand why it was like dating someone from a completely different species. Because she was!”

Derek nods, but he looks sad. “Yeah, that...she has some issues. But she's gotten a lot better.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Derek looks past him, back at Malia. She's saying something and even though she's more than twenty feet away, Stiles is certain that she's talking directly to Derek and he can hear every word she says. Finally, Derek nods.

“Let's get some food and go somewhere quiet to talk.”

Stiles silently agrees and they make their way up and down the street, stopping off at the different little food stations the pack has set up until they both have plates overloaded with food and Stiles has two beers cradled awkwardly in the pockets of his hoodie while Derek has a bottle of water in the back pocket of his jeans. Derek leads them back down the street, to his own house, and around the back, until they settle down on the steps of the back porch.

Stiles starts to tuck into his food, his mouth full of hamburger, when he notices that Derek isn't eating. Instead, his plate is sitting next to him and he's resting his elbows on his knees, wringing his hands together.

Stiles swallows hard and just sits there, waiting for Derek to start talking.

Finally, after more than a few quiet moments, Derek takes a deep breath.

“Most packs live like this,” he gestures around them, at the houses and the little village his family has set up here. “Close to forests or flat plains, private beaches, areas they can use to teach the little ones without anyone overlooking them.”

“Makes sense. No one wants another bat-boy incident.”

Derek snorts out a laugh, then continues. “Big cites, college towns, they don't work for packs, so they're considered neutral territory. Especially colleges, because you can't really stop someone from going away to college. My Uncle Peter, he went all the way to Columbia. Most of us, we can't really handle being separated from our packs for long periods of time; that's why we always try to stay within driving distance of home.”

Stiles smiles, trying to break the tension that seems to have built up around them. “Where'd you end up?”

“UC Irvine. Eight hour drive, six if I pushed it. Wasn't ideal, but we made it through.”

“But Peter wasn't like you? Is that what you're saying?”

Derek shrugs, pops a cherry tomato in him mouth and thinks while he chews. “I don't think he really got along with my mom and the rest of their siblings, at least not back then. Peter was sort of an oops baby; there's a big age gap between him and everyone else, so it was always like they weren't really on the same page. Maybe they weren't even reading the same book. I don't think anyone was really surprised, from what I've been told, that he wanted to go to the other side of the country for a few years. He came home for Christmas, summer vacation, but for the most part, he stayed out there.”

“And then what happened?” Stiles asks, because he seriously doesn't understand this story time.

Derek turns to him with a grin. “The same thing that always happens with every good story. Boy meets girl, right?”

Stiles laughs loudly. “Holy shit, he got her pregnant?”

“Her name was Corinne. She was a werecoyote. They don't really do the whole pack thing, they're solitary by nature. Whether that had anything to do with her putting Malia and Jackson up for adoption, I don't know. But she never told Peter.”

“Holy shit,” Stiles breaths again.

“Jackson accidentally found out he was adopted when he was young, some stupid fucking science class proved that it was biologically impossible that his parents where his birth parents. When his powers started manifesting, when he knew he wasn't human, he somehow, and I still don't know how, managed to find his way here and we realized what had happened.”

Stiles frowns. He remembers when Jackson joined their school; sophomore year and he completely dominated the lacrosse team. He never would have guessed the guy had been dealing with such a harrowing home life.

“And Malia?” he asks, because that was what started this discussion.

Derek takes a deep breath. “When a werecoyote gives birth to a daughter, the majority of her powers pass on to that daughter. Corinne wasn't happy with that, when she finally figured out what happened. I'm guessing she thought it was part of the pregnancy, that her powers would return after she'd given birth. When they didn't, he decided she was going to hunt Malia down.”

“Wow, that's...I don't even...”

Derek keeps going. “Because it was a closed adoption and Corinne had signed away all her rights, she couldn't get access to the twins, so she had to look for Malia herself. When she finally did find her, about ten years later, she shot at her while she was in a car with her mother and younger sister. She thought she'd killed Malia, but in fact, she'd just forced the change, and, after the trauma of seeing her mother and sister die right in front of her, she took off into the wilderness as a coyote.”

Stiles narrows his eyes. “When you say she took off into the woods as a coyote, how long are we talking about here? How long was his a coyote?”

Derek turns to him and levels him with a flat look. “We found her about six months before her first day at Beacon Hills High.”

“What the fuck?!” Stiles cries as he jumps to his feet. He turns to glare down at Derek. “Are you kidding me? She was living as an animal for, what? Eight fucking years? And you just, what? Let her go back into the world and fall into a relationship with the first guy she growled at?”

“It wasn't our idea. Peter wanted her to get back to normal as quickly as possible, pretend like she was just a normal teenager.”

“She wasn't a normal teenager! God, no wonder she growled at me.” Suddenly, Stiles turns and runs back to the main street, Derek shouting after him as he goes.

Malia's still in the same place she was when she went with Derek, so he crosses to her, and pulls her into a hug before she can stop him.

“Um,” she mumbles into his shoulder, her hands hanging awkwardly at their sides, still holding a barbecue fork and a pair of tongs, “aren't you supposed to be dating my cousin?”

“I am, I just...” he falters, unable to put into words exactly what he's feeling.

“He told you,” Malia says with a shrug. “Whatever, it happened, it's done, I got better.”

Next to him, Derek snorts into his water bottle and Malia suddenly brandishes her tongs at something over Stiles' left shoulder. “I will shove these up your ass and then reach down your throat to pull them out again.”

Stiles turns to look over his shoulder and sees Jackson, his hands up in surrender, but a smirk on his face as those at his table look on with exasperation.

Next to him, Derek chuckles. “Come on, let's go see the rest of the family.”

  
  


///

  
  


Stiles spends the rest of the day being introduced to different members of Derek's family and eating so much he honestly feels sick. There was a moment where Stiles got to watch Percy repeatedly kick Scott in the shins for not recognizing her when she was a wolf cub and Stiles had taken her to Scott at the vet's. Stiles laughed so hard he cried and Kira almost went into labor.

He lost track of his father whenever Derek dragged him off for their heart-to-heart and now he's trying to track him down in a sea of people and losing spectacularly.

He lost track of Derek, too, when he went to put Percy down for the night and now he's standing in the middle of this make-shift village in the middle of the preserve feeling completely out of place and just wanting to go home.

“So, what sort of a name is 'Stiles' anyway?”

Startled, Stiles spins around and finds woman he's never met before standing there, arms folded over her chest, hip cocked. She narrows her eyes when Stiles doesn't say anything and he squeaks. 

“Um, well, my real name is Mieczyslaw, so if you wanna call me that, by all means, go right ahead, but most people prefer to stick with 'Stiles'. It's easier on the tongue.”

The woman blinks at him, just stares at him like she can't quite decide what kind of creature he is. Finally she straightens up, but her glare is still firmly in place. “I'm Laura Hale, Derek's older sister.”

Stiles grins widely. “Oh, hey! It's nice to finally meet you. Derek and your mom have said some great things about you.” He holds out his hand for her to shake, but she just stares at him, her nose wrinkling in distaste, until Stiles lowers it again. “Or not?”

“What is it exactly that you want from my brother?”

Stiles frowns. “Companionship? Romance? General date-like things?”

“He has a child, you know.”

“I do know that. In fact, technically I met Percy first, even if she was a puppy at the time.”

“Why would you want to date a single father? Can't you find any non-parental people to date?”

It's Stiles' turn to narrow his eyes at the hostile woman standing in front of him. “Are you trying to make me _not_ want to date your brother?”

Laura shrugs nonchalantly, like she doesn't care one way or another about trying to warn off the guy her brother is kinda, maybe dating.

“Wow,” Stiles says mockingly, “with sisters like you, who needs enemies, huh?”

“We have enemies,” Laura tells him coldly, “I'm trying to make sure we don't a acquire any more.”

“We all have enemies.”

“I'm not talking about Jim from the diner who spits in your coffee because your dad has pulled him over for speeding one too many times.”

“Jim spits in my coffee?!” Stiles screeches, but Laura ignores him, barreling on.

“I'm talking about people trying to kill you just because of who, or what, you are.”

That gives Stiles pause, and he cocks his head to one side, regarding Laura once more. “My dad's a cop, Laura. I'm a _queer_ cop. You think no one's tried to kill either of us just because of that? I'm not naïve. I know what you and your family are, and I'm perfectly aware that there are probably people out there who think you shouldn't exist. I know what that feels like and I'm not running away just because you think I won't be able to handle the stress.”

Laura just sneers. “We'll see.”

She turns on her heel and walks away, leaving Stiles gaping after her.

“I see you've met Laura.” 

Stiles squawks and flails. “Will people stop doing that to me?!”

Derek smiles at him, but it fades when he looks back in the direction his sister left.

“She's intense,” Stiles says, the most diplomatic word he can come up with to describe the woman.

Derek snorts. “Understatement.” He sighs. “She's going to be the pack Alpha one day, when my mom decides it's time to stand down, and she's been in training for a while now, but she's at that point in her training where she sees threats everywhere. And when she sees what she thinks is a threat, she's immediately at Defcon One. She hasn't exactly figured out how to process everything yet.”

“So I'm a threat?” Stiles asks, concerned.

Derek nods his head. “Of course you're a threat. Anyone who finds out about our existence is a threat. It's the Alpha's job to determine if something should be done or not.”

“So that's why Talia paid me a visit after the whole thing with Percy.”

“That sounds like her,” Derek says with a laugh. He sobers quickly. “Laura will learn. But for now, she's just doing what she thinks she needs to do to protect her family.”

Stiles takes a moment to think about what he would do if there was someone who was a possible danger to his own family; to his dad, Natalie, Lydia, or Scott and Kira. 

He understands Derek's sister a little better.

“So, uh, do you have to get home right away?” Derek asks awkwardly, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. 

“Uh, well, I drove my dad here, but, I mean, why?”

“I don't know, I just thought maybe you could stay here for a while? Hang out a little? Maybe we could watch a movie.”

Stiles swallows hard, suddenly nervous. They've been on a few more dates since the night Derek took Stiles out for dinner, kissed a few more times than that, but that's been the extent of their dating life.

Derek raises his hands, like he's placating someone. “I mean...I don't mean we have to...do anything. It's just, I asked you here today and then everything got so crazy with you learning half your family are part of the pack. I thought it might be nice to spend an hour or two on our own.”

“Sure,” Stiles says, spotting a familiar red-head over Derek's shoulder, “I think my sister owes me a favor or two; I'm sure she'll be happy to drive my dad home.”

“Oh, pipe down, Stiles,” Lydia says, pulling on her jacket, “you're acting like I killed your dog and fed it to you.”

“You've lied to me for pretty much the entire time we've known each other!”

“I didn't lie, brother mine. I just declined to tell you something.”

Stiles waves a hand dismissively. “Semantics.”

Derek chuckles at their antics. “Is that a yes, Lydia?”

The banshee sighs. “I suppose so. But Scott's the guilt-ridden one. You should be milking that for all it's worth.”

“Oh, believe me, I will. But you aren't getting off the hook that easily. You are going to tell me everything there is to know about being a banshee. Everything.”

Lydia just rolls her eyes and walks away. “Enjoy your night, Stiles. Derek.”

Stiles watches her leave and finally spots his father sitting on the grass in front of someone's house with Erica, Boyd and Parrish, probably trying to figure out how all of them got the same night off without the Sheriff's department crashing down around them.

“Come on,” Derek says, and Stiles lets the werewolf drag him away before he can find out how not sober his father actually is.

Derek insists that they've had too much alcohol already, so instead, they make hot chocolate before they settle on the couch and Derek starts flicking through the TV.

“My sister, Cora, rented Ocean's 8 when she invited herself over last weekend. We could watch that, if you want?”

Stiles nods. “Sandra Bullock and Helena Bonham Carter? Count me in.”

“Don't forget Richard Armitage,” Derek points out as he starts the movie.

“Meh,” Stiles says, then he grins. “Would he be on your list, then?”

Derek turns to him with a frown. “My list?”

“Yeah, you know, your list of famous people you're allowed to sleep with should the opportunity arise and your spouse or partner can't be upset.”

“If my partner slept with someone else, whether I knew about it or not, I still think I'd be upset.”

Stiles smirks. “Yeah, me, too. But it's still fun to think about it. So, come on, who's on your list?”

Derek gets more comfortable on the couch, turning to face Stiles a little more. “Alright, um, Chris Hemsworth.”

Stiles nods. “Thor, cool.”

“Janelle Monae. Chris Pine-”

“Hey! Don't steal all the Chris'!”

Derek laughs. “Uh, how many spaces do I have left?”

“Two.”

“Okay, um, The Rock and Emilia Clarke.”

Stiles nods in agreement. “Not bad. Not bad at all.”

“Alright, your turn, come on, I'm sure you've had time to think.”

“Chris Evans.”

“See, you got your Chris in there.”

“Idris Elba. Jason Momoa. Tom Hardy and Danneel Ackles.”

“Token woman tacked on at the end.”

“I will have you know that Danneel Ackles is an incredible woman and I wouldn't say 'no' to a threesome with her and her husband, either.” Derek gives him a sweet smile and he sighs happily. “Alright, maybe I would, given the circumstances.”

“Yeah,” Derek agrees. Onscreen, Sandra is conning her way into luxury hotel room, but Stiles isn't really paying attention anymore. He only has eyes for the man sitting next to him.

Derek clears his throat. “Listen, Stiles, I know this is probably way too soon to say this-”

“I can pretty much guarantee you that it isn't,” Stiles interrupts.

“But I want to put all my cards on the table anyway.”

“Lay 'em out for me.”

“I really want this to go somewhere. This, us, I mean.”

“Me, too.”

“And I see a real future for us and Percy. And so, in saying that, I'm really not cool with either of us seeing other people. So if that's not for you-”

“I am strictly a one-man guy. Or woman.” Stiles waves his arms in the air when Derek's expression turns a little constipated. “No, I mean I've dated men and women, but always only one at a time, I swear. I'm not capable of having feelings of more than one person at any given time. I had the hugest crush on Lydia when we were kids, through most of high school, actually. And then my dad started dating her mom and I could tell that it was getting pretty serious, so I had to practically go to therapy to get over her so that I wouldn't be mooning over my soon-to-be step-sister. That would have been majorly awkward after she moved in.”

Derek lets out what sounds to be a sigh of relief, even though he's laughing at Stiles' story. “So you're okay with making this an exclusive thing?”

“I am so okay with that, it's not even a question.”

Stiles leans forward and captures Derek's lips in a sweet kiss that quickly turns heated.

Sandra and her jewel heist are quickly forgotten.

  
  


///

  
  


It's a tense few family dinners following the barbecue , with Stiles, Lydia, Noah and Natalie. Natalie knows they're keeping something from her, but according to Lydia, she's used to being kept in the dark and actually prefers it that way.

Stiles violently disagrees, but Natalie isn't his mother and Lydia has been doing this a lot longer than he has and so he bows to her wisdom.

His dad struggles, though. He has an open, honest relationship with his wife, it's the way he's always done things and he can't handle lying to her. Or 'omitting the truth' as Lydia likes to put it.

Noah ends up spending a lot of time with Lydia, Erica, Boyd and, oddly enough, Malia, all of them having had experience in lying to their loved ones in one aspect or another.

After a few weeks, he slowly starts to come to terms with lying to his wife. It's not perfect, but Lydia convinces both of them that it's what her mother wants, to they let it go for now.

Something else that's not perfect is Stiles' relationship with Derek's sister, Laura.

Things with Derek are great. Percy loves him and Stiles thinks they're well on their way to creating something really great, a nice little family. 

Laura seems to be trying her level best to tear that family apart. 

Derek insists that Laura is just wary, nervous about new comers, telling him constantly that she finds it hard to trust humans, even though her brother and some of her other family members were human, too.

Stiles remained unconvinced and does his utmost to stay out of Laura's way as much as possible.

A plan that fails miserably when Derek arranges a lunch date with just the three of them at the local diner.

“This is a waste of time,” Stiles hisses to Derek from where they're crammed into the same side of a booth. His eyes roam around the diner, looking for any signs of the werewolf, as well as an escape route, should he need one.

Derek sighs. “You just haven't spent enough time together, Stiles. Laura will love you just as much as I do, once she gets to know you. But in order for her to be able to do that, you actually have to be in the same room as her for longer than thirteen minutes. And, yes, I counted.”

“Derek, she hates me. That's just a fact. She thinks I'm going to take you away from the pack. She doesn't seem to understand that half of my family is pack of the pack, too.”

“She doesn't think that, Stiles.”

Stiles nods. “Yep, she literally told me that and she told me that she could kill me first if I even tried.”

Derek pales and swallows hard. “We'll talk to her. Me and my parents. But for now, let's just try to get through this.”

“Stiles? Hey, I thought that was you!”

Stiles looks up at the sound of the voice and finds a familiar faces standing at the end of the booth.

“Allison!” he beams, and jumps to his feet, embracing his old friend. “Oh, my God! How are you?! You look amazing, what are you doing here?!”

Allison Argent, an old friend of Stiles' from high school, lets out a familiar laugh at his bombardment. “I'm good, thanks. I'm just in town to take care of some business. I was going to stop by later to see you guys. How is everyone?”

“We're all good.” Stiles turns and glances back at Derek, flinching at the nervous look on his face. “God! I'm such a moron, I'm sorry. Derek, this is Allison Argent, Allison, this is my boyfriend, Derek Hale.”

Something flashes in Allison's eyes, but she reaches over to shake Derek's hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Like wise,” Derek answers through gritted teeth and Stiles has to bite down on a grin at Derek's jealousy, if the steel in his voice is anything to go by.

He turns away from his boyfriend and levels another grin at Allison. “So, how long are you in town for? We should totally get everyone together, assuming Scott's wife doesn't go into labor before you have to leave.”

“That sounds-”

Allison's cut off by a growl coming from behind Stiles, low and guttural and fill of anger and Stiles is honestly scared that some sort of wild animal has got into the diner.

But when he turns, it's not a mountain lion standing in the aisle, but Laura Hale, her eyes glowing yellow and her upper lip quivering in a snarl.

“What...?” Stiles starts, but then Derek is up and out of his seat in a flash, jumping between his sister and his boyfriend.

“Laura, stop,” he pleads, “calm down.”

“I told you!” she screams, pointing shaking finger at Stiles. “I told you he was trouble! Look at him! Look, Derek! _He's hugging an Argent_! What more proof do you need?! He's using you to get to us!”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Stiles asks, trying to keep himself from reaching Laura's level of hysterics. “I'm not out to get any of you.”

“Don't even open your mouth to me, you disgusting Hunter. I should rip your throat out right now.”

“What?!” Yep, hysterics reached.

“Try it, you filthy animal, and I will put you down for violating the code,” Allison says, oddly calm in the face of everything that seems to be happening.

Laura's eyes widen impossibly further. “ _Me_ violate the code? When you and your. _..assassin_ have been trying to infiltrate our pack and kill us all?!”

“Laura, keep you voice down,” Derek begs, his voice barely more than a hiss, but Stiles can't help but notice that Derek hasn't so much as looked at him since Stiles introduced him to Allison.

“There is no infiltration,” Allison insists. “Stiles didn't even know I was a Hunter until you opened your fucking mouth.”

Laura snorts in disbelief. “He knows an Argent, that's all the proof I need.”

“Wow, guilt by association, nice,” Stiles spits, slowly losing the will to live.

“We should go,” Derek says quietly and it's more than obvious he's not talking to Stiles.

“Derek,” he tries, but Laura cuts him off with a slap to the face.

“Don't you dare talk to him. Don't you even look at him ever again or I will make sure you never see the light of day again.”

“The Argent Clan could view that as a direct threat against the human population of this town, and with the Argent Matriarch as witness to said threat, it would be well within our rights to carry out sanctions.”

Laura grows even more angry in the face of Allison's words and Derek all but drags her out of the diner.

“Derek!” Stiles yells, running after them, but Derek doesn't break stride, he doesn't even turn to look at Stiles, just pulls his sister to his car, bypassing what Stiles knows is Laura's own soccer mom car, and bodily shoving her into it.

Neither of them so much as spares Stiles a glance as they speed away.

  
  


///

  
  


Derek's phone isn't even ringing now, just going straight to voicemail. Stiles doesn't leave another message; he's left about eighteen of them since Derek and Laura left the diner. He's also called Talia, Cora, Malia, Scott, Kira, Lydia and Erica. Even Jackson. 

All of them had rejected his calls.

Stiles feels...abandoned. His family and best friends were all a part of this pack without telling him, and now it looks like they've all chosen said pack over him.

This is going to make Thanksgiving really fun.

In reality, Stiles knows that Laura has probably filled Talia in on what she thinks Stiles has been involved in, and Talia has banned the pack from contacting Stiles until she can get to the truth, because Talia is reasonable like that. 

It doesn't make Stiles feel any better, though.

He tries again, because he's a masochist, and makes his way through his phone book, calling his friends and family one by one. All his calls go to voicemail.

Stiles resists the urge to throw his phone against the wall and throws it against the sofa cushions instead.

It's not nearly as satisfying, but at least his phone isn't in a million pieces.

He's contemplating driving up to the Hale township, or whatever the hell they call their little village in the middle of the Preserve, and just demanding to be listened to, when there's a knock on his front door.

Just for a second, Stiles has hope, hope that it's Derek standing in the hallway, looking dejected and apologetic as he tries to explain his actions.

Those hopes are dashed when Stiles pulls the door open and sees Allison there, with a tentative smile on her face.

“Not who you were expecting, huh?”

Stiles says nothing, just retreats back to his living room. He leaves the door open and Allison inevitably follows him inside.

“For what it's worth, I am sorry that happened,” she says as she takes a seat on the couch. Stiles rolls his eyes at her. “No, seriously, I am. I didn't know you even knew the Hales and I definitely didn't know you knew what they were. I should have paid more attention to who you were sitting with in the diner. I just got so excited, seeing you again after all this time. I should have been more careful.”

“Not your fault, I guess.”

Allison shrugs. “Hunters tend to make weres a little...jumpy. Even when they haven't really done anything wrong.”

“What exactly is a Hunter? They made it sound like you're running around skinning them alive and cutting off their heads to hang on your wall like some sort of sick trophy.”

Allison cringes. “I'm not going to lie, Stiles, there are some Hunters out there who think like that. They think that any and all supernatural creatures should be wiped from the face of the earth.”

Stiles narrows his eyes at her. “And you don't think that?”

“No, of course not. I know as well as you probably do that there are good and bad werewolves and other things out there. My job, my family's job, is to come in when a were or something else has caused harm to humans. And we deal with them.”

“Like...like some sort of supernatural police force or something?”

“If you wanna look at it that way, yeah, I guess.”

“And you 'deal with them'? Deal with them how?”

She winces. “Well...”

Stiles gapes at her. “Seriously?! You kill them?!”

“Sometimes there isn't any other way, Stiles. Sometimes a werewolf gets so out of control that it can't be stopped or detained and we have to do what's necessary for the safety of the rest of the population. It's not an easy thing to do, taking someone's life, but sometimes there isn't any other choice.”

Stiles snorts. “It's no wonder werewolves hate you if you're running around killing their friends every time they have a bad full moon.”

“Don't be so blasé about it, Stiles, I'm not talking about someone sneezing and wolfing out in public. I'm talking about killing or seriously harming someone. That's the only time we step in. Otherwise we tend to just let them get on with their lives.”

Stiles laughs, and it's not a pleasant sound even to his own ears. “Yeah, get on with their lives looking over their shoulder and panicking every time they have a fender bender.”

Allison sighs. “Stiles...”

Stiles shakes his head and holds up his hands. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm just a little...on edge. I just want to get this whole thing cleared up.”

“Is that really what you want?” Allison asks, her voice soft.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Well, I mean, you're out now, right? You can just...go back to your life now. Forget all about werewolves and everything else.”

Stiles takes a moment to think about the fact that his sister, brother and sister-in-law are all part of the 'everything else' that Allison's implying, before he narrows his eyes at her.

“Didn't you just get done telling me that they're not all evil and most of them just go about living normal lives?”

Allison flushes. “Well, I mean, yeah, sure, but you have to admit, it's definitely safer for you if you weren't involved with them.”

“Safer is a relative term,” Stiles mumbles.

Allison cocks her head to the side. “How did you find out about werewolves and all this shit anyway?”

“Derek's daughter,” Stiles admits on a sigh, falling down into an armchair.

“What, she just told you they were all werewolves?”

“No,” Stiles explains, “she got her first full shift, got scared, ran away and when I found her, she shifted back in front of me. They didn't really have much choice but to let me in on the secret after that.”

Allison makes a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. “Stupid animals, can't keep their damn runts on a fucking leash.”

Stiles waits a beat, tries to make what Allison just said not what Allison just said, but he can't and so he slowly turns his head to look at her.

“What the hell did you just say?” Stiles asks, his voice cold and on the sofa, Allison blinks, like she's rerunning her words in her mind and when she realizes what she said and who she said it to, she pales drastically, her mouth dropping open.

“I...I...Stiles, I didn't mean...”

“You did, though,” Stiles cuts her off. “You meant every word, you just made the mistake of speaking those words out loud.”

“Stiles, you have to understand-”

“Understand what? That you and your family are nothing but a bunch of psychopaths hell bent on ridding the world of people who are different than you?”

Allison face hardens and she grits her teeth. “They are monsters, Stiles, all of them. The world will be a better place if they weren't a part of it.”

Stiles laughs, loudly and harshly. “Are you seriously sitting here trying to justify mass murder? Or worse, genocide?!”

“That's not-”

“That's exactly what you said, don't try to wimp out on me now!”

Allison jumps to her feet. “No matter what I think about the wolves, Stiles, the point is that we're here for a reason. The Hale Pack broke the code. They put the lives of the innocent people in this town at risk. It is well within our rights to come here and pass sanctions.”

Stiles gaped. “What the hell are you even talking about? What code did they break?”

“You're not part of the pack, Stiles; you don't need to know about this.”

“You're threatening the lives of my boyfriend and his family, you're damn right I deserve to know!”

“This is none of your business, Stiles,” Allison says, her voice cold now. “And if you insist on being involved, you might not like what happens next.”

Stiles spins on his heel and reaches into the drawer of the entertainment unit and pulls out the revolver he keeps stashed there. His father would tan his hide if he knew that Stiles keeps a loaded gun unsecured in his living room, but right now, he's too glad to have it to consider the ramifications.

He turns back to Allison and levels the gun at her. “Are you aware that you just threatened a Beacon Hills deputy?”

Allison blanches, her hands instantly raising in defense, but Stiles sees her right hand tick, like she wants to reach for something. Stiles isn't naive enough not to think she has at least one weapon stashed on her person somewhere.

“Stiles, you know that's not what I was doing. I'm just trying to warn you that-”

“That what? That I might get hurt when you go off and try to kill an innocent family? You just told me you were going to kill people! You admitted it!”

She raises her chin defiantly. “Then do something about it, Stiles. I'd really like to see how it plays out when you bring me in. It'll be lots of fun to see your colleagues look at you like you've lost your mind when you tell them you've arrested me for threatening to kill a werewolf.”

Annoyingly, Stiles knows she's right. Allison, for all the hatred she apparently holds in her heart, looks like a Disney princess. He has no trouble believing that she'll put those innocent looks to good use, batting her eyelashes, pleading that she doesn't know why the big bad deputy is targeting her.

If he wants to stop her, he needs help. 

“Get the fuck out of my apartment.”

She sighs, like she's disappointed in him. “Stiles, come on. You're in law enforcement. Apparently.” She squints, as if she can't quite believe it and Stiles scoffs. “You have to understand that what we do is necessary. We are the only overseeing force these... _creatures_ have. We are doing what is right.”

“You are threatening the lives of children and you will get out of my apartment right now or I will kill you, threat or not.” He cocks the hammer and she flinches and backs up towards the door.

“If you get in the middle of this, Stiles, I won't go easy on you. You are the one making this more difficult than it has to be.”

“Somehow, I think that I'm on the right side here, since I'm not the one threatening to kill innocent people.”

Allison raises her chin, defiantly. “We'll give you a few hours, Stiles, if you want to warn the Hales that we're coming. Maybe that'll be enough time for you to convince them to do the right thing.”

He smiles at her. “Then I'll see you soon, I guess.”

Allison narrows her eyes at him, then she turns and leaves.

Stiles doesn't lower his weapon until he hears the ding of the elevator, then he rushes to the living room window. He waits a few minutes, but eventually, Allison exits the building and climbs into a Toyota parked on the other side of the street, facing his building. But she doesn't go anywhere, just sits there, like she's watching Stiles, waiting for him to leave or call someone so that she can follow him or see who comes to him.

With a sigh, the disappointment ringing in the air, Stiles puts on his shoulder holster for his service weapon, an ankle holster for the revolver, grabs a jacket, keys, wallet, badge and cellphone, and leaves his apartment, making sure to lock it behind him.

Then he knocks on the door of the neighbor across the hall.

“I need to borrow your car,” he says as soon as his knock is answered and Danny frowns at him.

“What?”

“If I tell you this is police business, will you give me your keys?”

Danny gives him a flat look. “You realize I'm the police, too, right?”

Stiles takes a deep breath. “Seriously, Danny. Someone...they know my car, okay? And I have to get out of here. I have to warn-”

He cuts himself off, but he already knows he's said too much by the way Danny straightens out of his slouch and looks at him with concern.

“Are you in trouble? Do you need help?”

“I-” Stiles stops and narrows his eyes at Danny. “Actually, yeah. Yeah, I think there's something you could probably do for me. You're gonna need your service weapon.”

Danny, bless his soul, just nods. “Okay, give me a minute.”

Five minutes later, Stiles is sitting in Danny's Mazda, watching as Danny drives his Jeep out of the underground parking garage of their building.

“ _The Camry, right?”_ Danny's voice asks from the speakerphone of Stiles' cell.

“Yeah.”

“ _Yeah, it's following me.”_

Stiles wishes he was surprised, but he isn't. “Okay, just go to the station and talk to my dad. I'll...I'll contact you both later once I've talked to the people she's after.”

“ _This is insane,”_ Danny mutters. _“I'll talk to you later.”_

Stiles hangs up and waits another few minutes before the leaves the garage and heads for the Hale grounds.

He can only hope that Allison came alone.

  
  


///

  
  


Stiles gets all the way to the main house before he spots someone. Ethan and Aiden come out from behind the main house, shaking their heads at him, like he's stupid.

And who knows, maybe he is.

“I need to talk to Talia,” Stiles says, still in the car. “Seriously, this is an emergency. I'm talking life or death here. If you don't let me see her, people are going to die.”

“At your hands?” says a voice from his right. Stiles startles and turns to see the passenger side door open and Malia crouched down, look in at him. Behind her, Jackson stands with his arms folded over his chest, looking uncomfortable.

Stiles levels a glare at her. “You really think I'm capable of killing someone in cold blood?”

Malia stares at him for a few seconds and it feels like she's looking into his soul. And then she lets out a deep breath. “Better hold Laura back.” She doesn't raise her voice, or even look away from Stiles, but Stiles knows she's not talking to him. But he gets out of the car when she inclines her head at him.

“Keep watch,” Jackson tells the twins, then follows his own twin into the Alpha's house.

And he immediately rushes across the room to help Boyd and Erica in holding back a snarling Laura.

“He is a traitor!” she yells through her fangs, saliva flying everywhere. “He is our enemy and you are letting him walk into our den! He is a dangerous and he will bring death down on our heads!”

“Pipe down,” Stiles throws at her with more confidence than he feels. Jackson snorts.

Talia stands in the middle of the room, her husband and eldest son at her back, looking calmer than Stiles thinks the situation allows.

“Is my daughter right, Mr. Stilinski? Are you here to kill us? Did you bring the Hunters with you?”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “For the last time, I am not working with the Hunters. I didn't even know there _were_ Hunters until the diner. I'm not trying to kill anyone.”

“Liar!”Laura breaks out of Erica's hold and lunges at him, but the blonde werewolf manages to grab hold of her leg, pulling her up short. Erica sinks her claws into Laura's leg, causing her to cry out and her struggles to weaken. Erica keeps her claws where they are.

“Listen to me,” Stiles says, taking a step towards the huddled group. Malia puts a warning hand on his shoulder. “Derek told me that werewolves can tell when someone is lying.”

“We can hear it in their heartbeat,” Ciaran, Talia's husband, answers for them. “The heart stutters, jumps, when a person lies. It's possible to control it, but it takes years of practice, and even then, there are other ways a person can give themselves away.”

“Okay, then.” Stiles nods his head. “I want all of you who can to listen to my heartbeat, okay? I did not know Allison Argent was a werewolf Hunter. I am not a Hunter. I don't want to hurt any of you.”

“He's still lying,” Laura says with a snarl, but she's noticeably calmer and the other three let her go. But she doesn't move away from where she's standing in front of an open door.

“Laura, that's enough,” Talia tells her, her voice full of authority, and Laura wilts.

“Stiles, I know you aren't stupid enough to walk into a wolf's den without good reason. Considering what my children saw today, I'm surprised you would think to come at all.”

“I already told you, I didn't know Allison was a Hunter or that you had any sort of problem with her. She's just a girl I went to high school with.” Stiles looks back at Laura. “You know Scott and Isaac both dated her, right? And she's Lydia's best friend?”

That shuts all of them up. They look like the rug has just been pulled out from under them, and Erica giggles.

Talia clears her throat. “Be that as it may, I'm sensing you had an actual reason for coming here, yes?”

“Allison came to see me, after the diner.” More growls, but Stiles ignores them. “I know why she's here. I think, I mean, I'm just guessing, based on what she said.”

“And why is that?”

“I think she's after Percy.”

The room explodes, all of them talking over one and other, until Talia simply raises her hands and then all shut up.

“Explain,” she says.

Stiles takes a deep breath. “When she came to my place, she said something, about not letting the secret get out, how it's her responsibility to deal with threats to the population at large. I think she found out about Percy running away. Or, maybe not _Percy_ specifically, but a werewolf in the pack. And she's here to...deal with it.”

“How could she find out?” Talia's other son – James, was it? – asks.

“Stiles said it himself, Allison is Lydia's best friend,” Jackson points out. “It's not too far-fetched to think she's using Lydia to keep tabs on us.”

Malia face-palms. “Lydia's going to kill her.”

“She'll have to get in line,” Laura adds with another growl.

“She told me to stay away or she can't promise I won't get hurt,” Stiles tells them. “I don't think humans affiliated with werewolves matter much to her.”

“They see them as traitors to their species,” Ciaran says. “Even people like James, born human to werewolf parents. Some factions have even gone so far as to get close to these wolf-born humans and tried to turn them to their cause.”

Stiles balks, but Malia speaks before he can.

“Has that ever actually worked? How can someone turn their backs on their family like that?”

Stiles knows she's thinking about her mother, how she chose to try to kill Malia to get her powers back.

“Once, that we know of.” Talia's voice is tight with control. “A pack at the border near Canada. She was the daughter of the Alpha's second and she was attacked by a group of omegas trying to take over the pack.”

“Omegas?”

“Werewolves without a pack,” Laura answers through gritted teeth, like she can't believe she speaking to Stiles at all. “A werewolf needs a pack for strength, stability, comfort. It's everything you get from a family but amplified. A pack keeps a werewolf sane. Take all that away, the wolf crumples, it can't function, it loses the ability to even reason. That's usually were all the stories come from, when a werewolf goes on a rage a kills a bunch of people and the Hunters come in to take it out.”

“How would a werewolf lose its whole pack?” Stiles asks.

Ciaran shrugs. “Death, maybe, in whatever capacity. Or, sometimes, when a werewolf has done something so egregious that the Alpha refuses to let them be a part of the pack, but thinks that death is too good.”

“So...wouldn't you be able to say that the Alpha would be responsible for anyone that omega killed or harmed?” He locks eyes with Talia and inclines her head.

“That is my belief, yes. Which is why I have never stooped so low as to cast someone from my pack to omega status. I would rather deal with anything like that in another way. Not that I have ever had anything so horrifying happen in my pack that banishment or a similar punishment would be necessary.”

“Good to know. Anyway, back to this daughter.”

“Tamora Monroe,” Talia nods. “When she was in the hospital, Gerard Argent paid her a visit, got in her head. She turned against her parents and her Alpha. She managed to kill her mother before she was stopped by her father and the rest of the pack. She died in the struggle.”

Stiles rakes his fingers through his hair. “This is all insane.”

“Life in a pack isn't magic and sparkles,” Laura spits. “It's tough and dangerous and people die. If this isn't for you, walk away now.”

“Hey, I've lived my whole life with my father fighting on the front lines of whatever crimes this town has.”

She snorts. “A town like Beacon Hills, yeah, he's in a lot of danger.”

“Apparently, he's been helping your family with whatever bullshit you bring to this town, so how about a little more respect, huh?”

Laura's eyes tick to her mother.

“He's right, Laura. Despite not knowing everything, Noah Stilinski has helped us out a great deal over the years.”

“This is all fascinating,” Jackson says derisively, “but can we get back to the matter at hand? That matter being the aggressive Hunter who apparently wants to kill our youngest pack member?”

Stiles blinks. “Does...do you think Allison _knows_ that Percy is the youngest pack member? Or how old Percy is at all?”

Erica cocks her head to the side. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I know I'm the outsider here, but I think I might have an idea for dealing with this whole shitstorm.”

  
  


///

  
  


“And you really expect this to work?” Laura asks, an hour or so later, once they've gone through Stiles' plan twice. She's calmed down a lot since Stiles started to lay out his plan but she's still glaring at him like this is all his fault.

He doesn't even know if he can blame her, so instead he just shrugs.

“I mean, I hope so? I can't imagine that the girl I knew in high school, the one who refused to even _attempt_ to dissect that damn frog, is really gone. I refuse to believe she's capable of killing a child, even if she thinks it's for the good of the...code, or whatever.”

Talia shakes her head. “You can't underestimate what the Argents might have put her through to create the person you met in your apartment. They are...ruthless. Unshakable in their code; any perceived infraction is punishable by death.”

James snorts. “They definitely don't know the meaning of the word 'rehabilitation'. In their eyes, the only good werewolf is a dead werewolf.”

Stiles spreads his arms wide. “Then I have to believe that this plan is our only hope. I won't be able to live with myself if I let Allison and her ilk roam free.”

Ciaran smiles. “You're putting yourself at serious risk to help us. We're grateful for that.”

Laura snorts. “He's still a human and the fact that we're trusting him makes my skin crawl.”

“Laura,” Talia scolds and Stiles looks across the room at James, who's sitting slumped on the couch, shaking his head, looking like this isn't the first time his sister has said something like this.

“Whatever,” Laura snarks, sounding like the sixteen year old Stiles busted for smoking outside the mall last month. “I'm going to check on my kids.”

“Peter has all the kids gathered at Derek's,” Talia calls after her.

“Percy's there, too?” Stiles asks and the Alpha nods. “Do you think she'll be okay with...with the plan?”

Talia inclines her head. “We have ways of dealing with things like this.”

“Right,” he says at length, and it's like some sort of spell has been broken, everyone starts moving, shifting, leaving in some cases, when Malia and Jackson head for the door.

“I'll call the others, get everyone here,” Ciaran says, heading for the stairs. “James, come help me.”

James grunts like a teenager but follows his father anyway.

“So, uh,” Stiles starts, “I know he probably doesn't want to see me, but I kinda think we should probably talk, so does anyone know where Derek is?”

Erica laughs from where she's lounging on the sofa, her feet kicked up on the coffee table. “He's in the kitchen.” She points towards the door Laura had been standing in front of the entire time she'd been here. 

Stiles turns and glares in disbelief at Talia. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Talia just shrugs, admittedly a little sheepish, so Stiles turns on his heel and marches through the door.

He stops short when his eyes land on Derek, sitting at the kitchen table, his hands clasped in front of him as he stares down at them. All the fight flies out of him when he sees how pathetic Derek looks and he takes a deep breath before closing the door behind him. Stiles is not stupid; the people out in the living room, apart from James, can literally hear his heartbeat, he knows closing the door won't stop them from listening to their conversation. But screw him for want at least the illusion of privacy.

“I'm sorry,” Derek says before Stiles can speak, “I'm sorry I let Laura drag me away.”

Stiles snorts. “Uh, from what I can remember, you were the one driving.”

Derek winces, like Stiles' words were a physical blow. “I know, I know, but Laura...it's hard for me not to do what she says, even now.”

“You didn't even give me a chance to explain. You know everyone out there heard my heartbeat, they know now that I wasn't lying. I'm not working with Allison. I didn't conveniently find your suddenly missing daughter just so that I could work my way into your life, or whatever bullshit story I know Laura spun for you.” 

“It sounds stupid when you put it like that.”

“Because it _was_ stupid!” Stiles yells, unconcerned. “It took three seconds out there for your family to realize I was telling the truth. This whole thing could have been avoided if you had just listened to me for three fucking seconds.”

Derek scrubs his face with his hands. “I know, Stiles; Jesus, I know. But there are reasons that...reasons why I...” He trails off and growls lowly. “Stiles, I can't think about this right now, not while knowing that Percy could be in danger.”

Stiles relents, slumps down into the chair opposite Derek's. “Yeah, I could see why you'd be having trouble focusing.”

Derek stares at him from across the table. “Do you really think that's why they're here? The Argents.”

Stiles shrugs. “I think it's possible.”

“But how did she find out?”

“I told you, she and Lydia were best friends in high school. She was at our house all the time. They stayed in touch all the way through college, and as far as I'm aware, they still talk regularly. Maybe not as often as when they were teenagers, but, still. It could have been something as simple as Allison calling and Lydia telling her she couldn't talk because a friend's daughter was missing and she just...jumped to her own conclusions.”

Derek scrubs at his face again. “Lydia really is going to kill her.”

“I really hope I'm there to see that, because Scott and Isaac will probably just stand there and cry at her and it will be hugely disappointing.”

“They both really dated her?” Derek asks, his mouth set in a crooked grin.

“Yep.” Stiles pops the 'p'. “Allison and Scott dated from pretty much the whole way through high school until just before the end of Junior year. She and Isaac happened Senior year right up until she decided she wasn't going to stay in California for college.”

Derek chuckles. “Isaac became a werewolf during his Senior year.”

Stiles gapes. “Are you serious?!”

“My mom had been fostering him for a year or so, after what happened with his dad, and she was looking into actually adopting him. She thought he should know everything before the adoption went through, so she told him during that summer,” Derek explains. “He took it surprisingly well, and when he turned eighteen, he asked for the bite.”

Stiles blinks for a few seconds, processing the information, making it fit with what he remembers from back then. 

“Maybe that was her catalyst,” he says suddenly.”

Derek frowns. “What are you talking about? Who's catalyst?”

“Allison's.” Stiles pulls his feet up underneath him in his chair, leaning forward. “From what I can figure out, Allison found out about werewolves and shit during our Junior year. She's a year older than us, started school late, so my best guess is that her parents let her in on the big secret when she turned eighteen, like it's traditional or whatever, they told her what her destiny is or whatever they call it.”

“Birthright, would be my guess,” Derek adds.

“Right, whatever, but that's why she broke up with Scott, because she wasn't dealing with the fact that werewolves are real. She went away over that summer; training, right? Then she came back all badass, Argent Matriarch, but she still had to play the high school girl role, so she starts dating Isaac, because she might as well get some while she's here.”

“Can we not talk about my almost brother like this, please?” Derek looks disturbed but Stiles just waves his hand, like he's erasing Derek's words.

“Then, somewhere around graduation, Allison somehow figures out Isaac's furry little secret and she goes postal! Defers her acceptance to Stamford and disappears.”

Derek nods. “She couldn't deal with the fact that she was unknowingly dating one of us so she threw herself into the hunting lifestyle with both feet and was completely assimilated.”

Stiles nods his head vigorously. “Yes, exactly!”

“And she's been keeping tabs on us ever since, waiting to...what? Get revenge?”

Stiles spreads his arms wide. “Maybe? Maybe she was waiting for some valid excuse to go after you and this is the best she could come up with.”

“Our pack follows the code to the letter. We've had run ins with Hunters before, Argents, who had to back off because they didn't have a valid reason to pass sanctions. I won't be the least bit surprised if they decide we're not cooperating and tried to kill us all.”

Stiles grows serious. “That won't happen. Seriously. You heard the plan, your mom thinks it's gonna work. No one is going to get hurt, especially not Percy.”

“I like that you're so confident, because I am seriously not.”

“Well, that's how good relationships work, ones strengths to counter the other's weakness.”

Derek casts his eyes back down to the table. “Are we still in a relationship? After everything I said to you?”

“Technically, _you_ didn't say anything. Your sister was the one who did all the ugly talking,” Stiles reminds him. “I'm not going to lie to you, Derek. What happened...yeah, I'm really pissed off that you didn't believe me. But I get the feeling that there's more to this story. So, whenever this is all over, we're gonna sit down and talk this out and then we'll go from there, okay?”

Derek smiles hopefully. “Okay.”

Suddenly, the kitchen door opens and Lydia barges in, pulling out a chair next to Derek and sitting down. She looks determined and serious. “Okay, Stiles, you and I need to talk.”

Derek is instantly worried. “Have you sensed something? I didn't hear you screaming.”

Stiles frowns. “You scream?”

Lydia rolls her eyes. “I'm a banshee, of course I scream. But that's not what this is about.”

“Then what's going on?”

Lydia groans and runs her hands through her long red hair. “Okay, first of all, you have to understand that I manifested my powers when I was sixteen, okay? This was way before Talia figured it all out and asked me to join the pack. I was a kid, I thought I was alone.”

“You're making it sound like you did something terrible,” Stiles says with a chuckle.

Lydia gives him a crooked smile. “I tested you. I wanted to see if you were like me.”

“You wanted to know if he was a banshee?”

“No, not a banshee,” Lydia says in answer to Derek's question. “Only women can be banshees. But there are thousands of other creatures and magic wielders out there. I thought that there was a possibility that Stiles could be...something.”

Stiles blinks at her, his mind going back to that time. Their parents had just moved them all into a new house together when Lydia had started exhibiting erratic behaviour – skipping classes, weird nightmares that woke up the whole house, sleepwalking. She even went missing for almost a week before Noah found her completely naked at the edge of the preserve. Stiles remembers all the different doctors Natalie and Jeff, Lydia's father, took her to see while Stiles' dad grew more and more concerned that Lydia didn't agree with he and Natalie being together and wondering if it would be better for Lydia if they stopped seeing each other.

And then suddenly, as suddenly as it began, Lydia returned to normal. No more nightmares, no more screaming everyone awake, no more sleepwalking. It was like the whole episode never even happened and everyone just forgot about it.

Now Stiles realizes it was just Lydia coming to terms with her abilities and, like she says, not quite handling the fact that she thought she was the only one. He imagines meeting the pack, learning the truth about Jackson and the others, went a long way to getting her head on straight again, but for some reason, Stiles can't help but wonder why she never told him, why she kept it from him. It had taken Stiles a while to come to terms with the fact that the love of his life was going to be his sister. He's not stupid; looking back on it now, Stiles knows that what he felt for Lydia during his early life was nothing more than a crush, an infatuation. He didn't really know Lydia at all, just what she showed the outside world – which didn't even crack the surface of the real Lydia Martin. After they all moved in together, it didn't take him long to realize that Lydia would never be more than a friend. A best friend, the sister he never wanted but desperately needed, but nothing more. 

He had thought that she felt the same way, but maybe he's wrong.

“So, you tested me for what? To see if I could pull a rabbit out of a hat?”

Lydia gives him a look he's grown increasingly familiar with over the last decade and more. That he's an idiot.

“No, Stiles. That's an illusionist.”

“I know that. So what are we talking about here? Are you going to tell me I'm a wererabbit or something?”

“Wererabbits don't exist,” Derek says and Stiles relaxes minutely.

“Thank God for that.”

“I tested you for pretty much everything I could think of,” Lydia says, like their little back and forth never happened. “Lycanthropy, fae, djinn, kitsune, incubus, succubus-”

“What?!” Stiles and Derek cry out at the same time, but Lydia just barrels on.

“I even tried vampires and wendigos.”

“But I'm not any of those, right? I mean, I hope I'm not, I don't want to have to feed on sex, that kinda takes all the fun out of it.” He wiggles his eyebrows at Derek, who rolls his eyes, but Stiles can see the blush staining his ears red.

“I would have told you if you were anything that could possibly manifest actual abilities. I know how hard that whole thing is, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.”

“But you're telling me that I'm something.”

“It doesn't mean anything, in the grand scheme of things,” she explains. “You can't predict the future or teleport or whatever fun stuff you're imaging right now.”

“Can you blame me?! You literally just told me I'm a superhero.”

“That is not what she told you.”

Stiles points a finger at Derek. “Hush, you, or I won't let you be a part of the crime fighting team I'm putting together.”

“From what I can figure out, you're something called a Spark.”

Stiles deflates. “Well, that doesn't sound very awesome.”

“It's not, really, if I'm being perfectly honest,” she says with a wince. “Like I said, the reason I didn't tell you was because what you can do, it doesn't really mean much if you didn't know about all of this.” She indicates Derek and herself with a wave of her hand. Then she points a finger at her brother. “But if I show you what you can do, you have to promise me that you won't use it on Derek when he won't put out.”

Derek's eyes grow wide at that, like he suddenly understands what Lydia is talking about, while Stiles just gets more and more confused.

The banshee reaches down to her purse and pulls out a burlap, drawstring bag which she then opens and dumps a pile of black dust onto the top of the table.

Derek instantly scoots his chair back. “You've just been sitting here with that in your purse?!”

Another eye roll from Lydia. “Oh, calm down, you big puppy. It's not actually going to hurt you.”

“What is it?” Stiles asks, reaching out to poke at the dust with a finger.

“It's called Mountain Ash, it creates a barrier that werewolves can't penetrate. Coyotes to a lesser extent, they can get through it, but it takes a considerable effort. You can use it to trap a werewolf or keep them out of somewhere.”

“James used to use it to keep us all out of his room and loads of other pranks when we were kids.”

“Kids,” Lydia snorts. “He hid all your phones it a bucket of it at last month's full moon.” 

Derek just pouts.

“Okay, so if James can use this stuff, is he a Spark, too?”

Lydia shakes his head. “Any human – or presenting human, like me and Kira and Parrish – can make a barrier from Mountain Ash. You can do...other things with it.”

“Like what?”

Lydia makes a face. “This is hard to explain. I don't think I'm doing this very well.”

“Just keep going, I'll figure it out,” Stiles tells her and he presses on.

“Sparks can manipulate Mountain Ash with their minds. They don't have to be touching it to make a barrier, they can make a little bit go a long, long way. There are other things that Sparks can do, and once this is all over you should probably start training with the pack's Emissary so that you can understand all of this better, but for right now, this is the stuff we need to work on.”

A light comes on in Stiles' mind. “Wait, you said that all humans can use this stuff, can trap a werewolf with this stuff. You think the Argents are going to use this to trap everyone.”

Lydia nods. “Jackson tells me they've tried it before.”

Stiles cuts his eyes to Derek, who just nods, looking dejected. 

“So if they surround this place with Mountain Ash, we're going to need someone who can break the barrier without them knowing. Which is where you come in.”

“You think I can learn how to do this before whatever big show down they've got planned?!” Stiles exclaims.

“You've done it before, the only difference now is that you know what you're doing.”

“How have I done it before?! When?!”

“I told you I tested you. I know you can do this, I saw it, now come on, try! Put a circle around Derek right now.”

“Lydia, what the hell do you think I'm going to do? Just wave my arms in the air and wiggle my nose and magically a circle of this fucking dust is going to fly around Derek and lock him in his chair?” Stiles waves his arms around for emphasis.

“Uh, I think that's exactly what you're going to do,” Derek says slowly and when Stiles turns to look at him, he's sitting in his chair, where he pushed it far away from the table, looking down at the floor.

Where a perfectly circle of black dust surrounds him.

Lydia laughs, delighted. “Is it closed? Can you get out?”

Derek reaches forward with a hand and blue sparks fly out as he hits against an invisible obstacle. Lydia claps.

“Alright, Stiles, now bring it back.”

“I don't even know how it got over there and you want me to bring it back!?”

“I would really like to be able to get out of this chair some time soon,” Derek says, a nervous wobble in his voice.

“You moved the ash, Stiles. Somewhere inside you, you know how to do this, you've just proved that,” Lydia coaches, “you just need to access that part of your mind and bring it to the forefront.”

Going on instinct, Stiles waves his hands towards Derek, in a sort of sweeping gesture, and as he does so, a little bit of the ash at the furtherest edge of the circle flies across tiled floor as if someone had blown on it. Derek jumps out of the chair and sits on the table instead.

Lydia see-saws her head back and forward. “Not exactly what I had in mind, but it'll do.”

Stiles lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. “Do you really think I'm going to need to do this? Because this is...I don't know what this is, but this isn't normal.”

“We have to be prepared for any eventuality,” says a voice from behind Stiles. He turns and sees Talia striding into the kitchen, throwing a hesitant look at the ash on the floor. “I hope one of you two is going to clear this up.” She points at Stiles and Lydia with a smirk.

The banshee immediately jumps off her chair and grabs a dustpan and brush from under the kitchen sink. Stiles feels another painful lurch in this chest at the fact that she knows where Derek's mother keeps her cleaning supplies, because she's been in this house a hundred times, because she knew all about the supernatural while keeping Stiles in the dark.

“By the way,” Talia says, pulling Stiles out of his thoughts, “your big gun has arrived.”

Stiles perked up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, and there might be a slight problem.” She's smiling, though, so Stiles figures whatever it isn't can't be that bad.

Still, he exchanges a concerned look with Derek before the two of them get to their feet and head out to the hallway.

“There is no problem,” they hear Kira shout before they even make it out of the kitchen, “I can do this!”

Stiles and Derek skid to halt in the hallway. Kira is doubled over, one hand on her swollen belly, the other gripping her husband's hand so tightly Stiles is pretty sure bones are breaking.

“Holy fuck, you're in labour!”

“Yes!” Scott says at the moment Kira says “No!” There's a definite growl in her voice.

“It's Braxton Hicks,” she say, breathing deeply now that the contraction has passed.

Scott shakes his head. “It's really not.”

“Are you sure-” Derek starts, but he cuts himself off when Kira raises glowing orange eyes at him.

“I am fine. Where are the bad guys?”

“Not here yet,” James calls from the living room. It sounds like his mouth is full.

“Seriously,” Stiles says, “shouldn't we be getting you to a hospital?”

“My waters haven't even broke yet,” Kira dismisses. 

Scott is shaking out his hand as the bones knit themselves back together. “We can't go to a hospital. The baby might be a kitsune, if she's a girl, and we don't know what kind. She might be able to do anything, control the weather, mess with time, create fire.”

“Fire?!”

“Plus, Kira could blow out all the power when she's in full blown labour. Bad for other patients.”

“She'll have the baby here,” Talia says, coming up behind them. “Lydia is her birthing partner and my sister, Meave, is a midwife. Everything will be fine. Once we've dealt with the Argents.”

“We don't even have a definitive timeline,” Stiles says with a roll of his eyes, “we could be waiting here for hours.”

“And I'll still be able to do it!” Kira growls again, her eyes still orange.

Stiles swallows hard. “You're really scary right now.”

“Good.”

Scott gives them a tight smile and takes his wife's hand again. “Let's go sit down for a while.”

They shuffle off into the living room, where James and Ciaran are still camped out and Stiles just looks at Talia and Derek in turn.

Talia shrugs. “Too late to change the plan now. Besides, we have no more Thunder kitsunes. It's Kira or nothing.”

“I'm starting to rethink my brilliant planning skills.”

Talia and Derek cock their heads and Stiles snorts.

“More cavalry has arrived.” The Alpha leaves to great them.

Derek takes Stiles by the hand. “Come on. We might as well relax with the others for a while, before we have to go fetch the rest of your plan.”

Stiles groans. “This is going to be a disaster.”

  
  


///

  
  


They're watching _Zootopia_ , because it's apparently the thing to do before you fight for your life, when all the wolves in the room snap to attention.

“Bad guys here?” Stiles guesses, still slumped on the couch.

Next to him, Derek nods. “Isaac says four SUVs just turned into the driveway of the property. And a motorcycle.”

“That's...what? Twenty-one people, max? We have more than that!”

“That's great, Stiles, but they've got machine guns full of wolvesbane bullets,” Jackson snaps, “we have sharp teeth and claws.”

Stiles points a finger at him. “You make a good point.”

Talia gets to her feet and the tension in the room increases exponentially. “You all know your positions. Off you go.”

Jackson, Malia, Erica and Boyd all leave out the back door and Stiles exchanges looks with the people that remain. Outside, he can hear the cars pulling to a halt, doors opening and slamming shut.

“Kira?” Talia asks. From her place on the love seat, Kira just growls. The animal spirit in her taking over almost completely. She's staring out the window, though, at the SUVs currently making a mess on the front lawn. Talia just smiles slightly and shakes her head. “I guess we'd better get this over with.”

As one, Stiles, Talia, Ciaran, Laura, James, Cora and Lydia get to their feet and make their way towards the front door.

“Finally,” a harsh voice says, “I thought our invitation might have gotten lost in the mail.”

Stiles' eyes flow across the people gathered before them until he spots the woman who spoke. She's sitting on the hood of one of the cars, her feet on the fender, a gun in her hand dangling between her legs from where she rests her elbows on her knees.

“Kate,” another voice scolds and Stiles' eyes tick to Allison, who's standing a few cars away from 'Kate'. Though Kate looks at least fifteen years older than Allison, she defers to her anyway, raising her gun free hand, placating.

“It's nice to see you again, Kate,” Ciaran says coldly and Stiles cocks an eyebrow at Lydia, but she looks just as confused, so Stiles files it away for a less pressing time.

“You know why we're here, Stiles,” Allison says, taking several steps forward, distancing herself from her grunts, proving that she's the one calling the shots.

“Yeah, to murder an innocent child,” Stiles says. Kate snorts a laugh but says nothing.

“Stiles, they-” Allison starts, but she snaps her mouth closed when Talia pushes Stiles back by the shoulder and makes her own position clear.

“You came here to threaten the life of one of my pack members, Ms. Argent; perhaps you would be so kind as to address your comments to me and not a complete stranger to my pack.”

Allison ducks her head, acquiescing, but Stiles can see the blush high on her cheekbones. 

“Fine, Alpha Hale, we'll make this official, if that's what you want?”

“I would prefer it, thank you.”

“Then as Matriarch of the Argent Hunter Clan, I'm here to pass sanctions on one of your pack members who broke the code thirty-seven days ago.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Stiles can see Talia nod, but he doesn't turn to look at her. He keeps his eyes on Kate. 

“And what code did my pack member break? If I am permitted to ask, of course. I assume we are allowed to plead our case?”

It's Kate who answers this time, another snort preceding her words. “Not if I had my way. We'd already be done here, if I were the one in charge.”

“You aren't,” snaps another voice from the back of the group, one Stiles can't see in the gloom of twilight.

Kate fishes for something in the pocket of her leather jacket and a few seconds later, she flicks a lighter and lights a cigarette.

The symbolism isn't lost on Stiles and he doubts very much the rest of the pack has missed it.

Allison ignores the dissension in her ranks and speaks only to Talia. “You can state your case and reasons why you think you shouldn't be punished for your transgressions, Alpha. But let me be clear, we have an eye witness in this case and their story holds merit as far as I'm concerned.”

There's a ripple among the werewolves, the idea that one of their own could have betrayed them weighing heavily.

“Very well,” Talia says and Stiles can hear a smile in her voice, though what's funny, he can only guess. “Can I ask what, exactly, you've been told? What made you come here? Be specific, please.”

Kate rolls her eyes, but Allison obliges, and describes how someone saw a wolf from the pack roaming free around town.

“I see. And how old would you say this wolf was?”

Allison frowns. “I'm not exactly an expert on the ages of apparent werewolves, but if they were old enough to shift completely, then I would say over sixteen, at least.”

This time, it's the Hale Pack's turn to snort and giggle. Even Stiles has to stifle a laugh into his fist.

“Well, then, it appears we have some conflicting information.”

“I beg your pardon?” Allison bristles.

Talia turns to call over her shoulder. “Derek, could you bring Persephone out, please?”

Slowly, the front door opens, and Derek walks out onto the porch, guiding Percy in front of him.

The reaction among the Hunters in instantaneous, some of the laughing, others sounding outraged, directing loud protests at Kate in particular.

Kate, meanwhile, just looks amused. “My, my, Derek. Didn't you grow up in all the right places?”

The comment makes Stiles feel dirty, but everyone else just ignores it.

“What the hell is this?” Allison asks, her hand twitching at her side, like she wants to reach for a weapon.

“This,” Talia says, gesturing at Percy, “is my youngest granddaughter, Persephone. She's the wolf who ran away a few weeks ago and was apparently spotted in town by your spies. Stiles found her and very kindly brought her home.”

“No, werewolves don't shift that early, you're lying, trying to save the wolf who actually escaped.”

James grunts. “ _Escaped._ We're not in a prison camp.”

“Some think you should be,” says another voice from the back of the group and Stiles just rolls his eyes.

Derek gets down on his knees in front of his daughter and gives her a reassuring smile. “Hey, sweetheart. Can you show all these people what you can do?”

Percy gazes nervously at the people on the lawn. “But, Daddy, you said I had to keep it a secret.”

“I know I did, but these people already know what we are and they want to see how special you are. Normal wolves can't change into a puppy until they're way older! You're so much better than they are and they want to see!”

Percy still looks nervous, but there's a tentative smile curving her lips and between one blink and the next, she's changed into the cute little puppy Stiles found shivering in his parking garage, her simple dress pooled on the ground.

“That's...that's not possible,” Allison stammers. She looks shaken, like her whole world view has been rocked at the foundations. “How?”

Talia shrugs. She even manages to do that gracefully. “We don't know. We have asked around the community, to see if anyone else has come across anything like this. But as far as we know, Persephone is just a very early bloomer.”

“Puberty is going to be hilarious,” Cora says with a smirk. Derek throws her a glare as he picks Percy up and gets back to his feet.

Allison looks alarmed. “But...the information we received suggested a fully grown wolf, not...not a puppy. I don't...” she trails off, looking at the people around her.

“Oh, who cares?” Kate spits, throwing her barely smoked cigarette onto the grass. “Nothing's changed, we still have a werewolf who broke the code. We still get our pound of flesh.”

Stiles narrows his eyes at her. “And, just so I'm clear here, what exactly are you planning on doing with a four year old? You know, punishment wise.”

“Nothing,” Allison says quickly, but Kate speaks over her.

“Usually it's, you know...” She drags a thumb across her throat in that well known universal sign, and the wolves on the porch start growling loudly and once again she just talks over the noise.

“But...with one so young...I'm sure we could find a use for her.” She grins like a predator and the werewolves surround Percy on all sides.

“That will not be happening,” Talia says, her voice like silk over gravel.

“I really don't think you're in a position to passing absolutes,” Kate smirks.

“Kate,” Allison bites, “you, also, are not in a positions to be giving orders.”

“Ally,” Kate cajoles, “take a minute to think this through. Imagine having a werewolf on our side. How much easier hunting could be if she could just sniff them out. She's young, she won't take long to train.”

The growls amp up in volume and the hairs on the back of Stiles' neck stand on end as Talia and Ciaran take a step forward.

“You need to leave. Now. Before you do something you will regret.”

Kate laughs. “You really aren't in a position to threaten here, Hale. You are severely out manned and, trust me, you are definitely out gunned. We have the upper hand and we will only be leaving here in one of two ways.”

“Kate!” Allison yells, but she pays her no mind.

“Either you hand over the kid and we all walk away with all of our body parts intact.”

“You are not taking my daughter!” Derek screams at her. Percy whines in his arms. 

“Or, we start shooting, you start biting and scratching like the little puppies you are, some people die or lose limbs, and we still walk away with what we want – the brat dead or in our custody.”

A sharp claw pokes Stiles in the back and he turns to see Laura glaring at him. Her eyes dart to the left, to the edge of the porch, and Stiles gets it. The Mountain Ash circle is complete, locking the wolves inside. He nods.

Stiles pulls his attention away from the screaming and the sounds of cocking shotguns and he concentrates on the ash, on moving it like he did in the kitchen. He tries to remember the feeling, the way the power moved down into his hand as he waved it at Derek. He can't make such a huge gesture here, though, he can't let the hunters know what he's up to – or even that he can do it at all.

At least not yet.

Laura is still poking him in the back, putting a hole in his shirt, he's pretty sure, and Lydia is hissing at her to leave him alone and let him concentrate.

It takes the sound of Percy's whimper, loud and piercing above the din, for Stiles to get it, to connect to the power, and as he clenches his right hand into a fist and suddenly there's a big pile of ash sitting at his heels. 

Laura hisses and jumps back, but Stiles barely notices, his eyes glued to Kate, because she's suddenly standing up straight, her eyes wary.

Like she's sensed the ash line being broken.

Stiles files that information away for now, because he has other things to deal with and he flinches when a shot rings out and the whole scene freezes, everyone looking at each other.

“Alright, I think I've heard just about enough,” says a voice from the side of the house and out of the darkness comes the Sheriff, in full uniform, followed by Danny, Parrish, Erica and Boyd, also in uniform.

“Fuck!” someone shouts and there's a mass exodus towards the cars.

But none of them start, all of the engines just ticking over and nothing else. The the sirens start blaring and they all turn to see a half-dozen patrol cars come screaming into the Preserve, blocking the already useless cars.

The hunters scatter, taking off into the trees and the pack members not on the porch, the ones who were waiting in the shadows for just this moment, start to give chase, Noah on the radio mentioning something about civilian volunteers. 

The Sheriff stays behind with Stiles and the others and all that remain of the hunters – Kate and Allison. The former looks pissed, the latter, betrayed.

“Stiles,” she says with those Disney princess eyes that hooked Scott and Isaac all those years ago.

Stiles just shrugs as he takes a step closer to Derek, now that the danger has passed. “What did you think was going to happen here, Allison? You threatened a Beacon Hills deputy, you threatened a _child_ , of all things. Did you really think we'd just let you walk away?”

The gun cocks again and all eyes shift to Kate, her .45 now centred on Percy. Derek turns his back and Stiles steps in front of them.

“Doesn't matter, this bullet won't stop 'til it's hits the target, and my target is that pretty little puppy you've got right there.”

“This is traumatizing,” Cora mumbles, “can someone actually do something right now?”

“Gladly,” another voice growls and Kate lets out a very childish squeak as a set of claws wrap around her throat from behind. 

“Thank you, Peter,” Talia says as Peter, apparently, uses his other hand to take the gun, tossing it to the grass.

“My pleasure, sister. And what would you like me to do with her now? Can I eat her?”

“I have other plans for her, thanks, Peter,” Noah says, twirling a pair of handcuffs around his pointer finger.

Kate laughs. “I'm so looking forward to seeing how you make this stick.”

“Trust me, we have ways.” Stiles gives Derek's shoulder a squeeze, gives him a smile, and them jumps off the porch.

He crosses the grass quickly, until he's standing in front of Allison. She looks scared and innocent and Stiles has to swallow down the lingering feelings of friendship left over from their high school days.

“Please, Stiles,” she begs, the pleas falling on deaf ears, “I was just doing what I thought was right.”

Stiles shakes his head. “Allison Argent, I'm arresting you for threatening the lives of one minor persons and one of Beacon Hills' _finest_ finest.”

“Stiles, I'm sorry,” she mumbles through tears, and Stiles ignores her completely.

“Uh, are you guys done?” Scott calls from the doorway off the house, wringing his hands nervously. He's resolutely not looking at his ex-girlfriend.

Stiles pins Allison's hands behind her back and turns her away from Scott. “I guess so, why?”

“Because Kira's water broke about twenty minutes ago but she wouldn't let me tell anyone because she knew you guys needed her to stop the cars from starting. But if it's over, can we do something about my child about to come into the world?”

“Oh, shit!” Stiles yells and Talia and Lydia rush towards the house. 

“Laura, go find Meave at whatever house she's taken refuge in, tell her everything's okay and that it's time. Cora, get Kira's things from their house. Scott, you're going to help me get her upstairs.”

And just like that, there's something else to worry about.

  
  


///

  
  


Stiles stays out of the interrogations. His father, Parrish, and Danny have all they need, they know how to work around the werewolves thing and Stiles trusts them to get the job done. So he hangs out in the break room with Erica and Boyd and texts with Cora and waits for news on Kira.

“So, is this just a normal week for you guys? Or was this a big deal?”

Boyd snorts and Erica smiles her bright smile at him. 

“Yeah, we're saving the world every Thursday night, Batman,” Erica says.

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Seriously, guys; what am I getting myself into here?”

Not that he knows for sure if there's anything to actually get in to. He and Derek never got to talk again before Stiles jumped into Danny's car and followed the patrol cars as they transported the Hunters to the station. And now he's been here for hours, waiting for them to be done with their questioning and Derek hasn't so much as texted him. 

He's trying not to think about it too much.

Erica's smile dims slightly. “It's not always like this, I promise. Most of then time, we don't even really see each other. I mean, yeah, me and Cora and Malia hang out all the time, they were my bridesmaids when we got married-”

“Derek was my best man, Isaac and James were my grooms men,” Boyd interrupts.

“-So, yeah, we're all friends, family, I guess, but it's like any family. We get together on the big days, birthdays, Christmas, thanksgiving. We do the odd barbecue, like you saw the other day. But for the most part, it's just like any other family. We can go months without seeing Jackson, for example.”

“Thank God,” Boyd mutters.

“So what you're telling me,” Stiles says, “is that this was a big week.”

“Hunters are a thing, not gonna lie,” Boyd tells him, “but we, usually, abide by the Code so they don't have any reason to come after us.”

Stiles nods. “Which is why they had to make one up, makes sense, actually.”

Erica shrugs. “We're just family, Stiles. Yes, one big, multi-cultural, multi-species, family, but family nonetheless. You should see our Halloween parties, they are insane.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he says non-committally. 

Erica frowns and Stiles knows she's going to ask something, but before she does, the break room door opens and Parrish walks in. 

“Alright, we're done,” he says with a tired sigh. 

Stiles looks at his watch. It's almost morning, they've been in here for hours.

“Can I talk to them?” he asks, getting to his feet.

Parrish nods. “You're dad's talking to the DA, getting charges filed and arraignment and...whatever. He says you have thirty minutes.”

“Each?”

Parrish gives him a look and Stiles grumbles as he gets to his feet.

He passes Danny in the hallway and stops him.

“Hey, can you-”

“Cut the cameras to the interrogation rooms?” Danny asks, cutting him off. “Yeah, your dad already mentioned that you'd probably want something like that. I'm on my way there right now. If anyone asks, we had a power outage.”

“Danny, I owe you big time,” Stiles tells him honestly. 

Danny narrows his eyes. “Yeah, you do, and you can repay all of these 'favors' you owe me by...letting me tag along to whatever next big thing that happens with the pack.”

“Done,” Stiles says with a shrug, “I mean, I'm pretty sure they'll have some sort of 'yay, the Hunters didn't kill us all' cook-out, so no matter what, I'll definitely be invited to that.”

Danny just looks at him. “Right. Well, give me about five minutes with the cameras and then you'll be good to go.”

He leaves without saying anything more and Stiles continues on his way, picking up a yellow legal pad from someone's desk as he passes, making it look like he's actually got a purpose.

Finally, he's at the interrogation rooms and he takes a look at the names on the doors before he chooses the one on the left and nods to the officer stationed outside.

Allison doesn't look up as he closes the door behind him; she's picking at her nail polish, her hands cuffed to a metal bar running down the center of the table.

Stiles gives it seven minutes, just in case Danny gets asked a question by someone, and he covers himself by writing out his Christmas list on the legal pad.

Some people, like Danny, deserve something extra good this year.

Finally, he throws both the pad and his pen onto the table and he sighs and Allison looks up.

“Stiles, I didn't mean for this to happen,” she says earnestly. Her handcuffs rattle as she tries to reach for him. “You have to believe me.”

“I don't,” Stiles says, his eyes locked on hers. “No matter what you say, you came to this town intent on killing an innocent child just because she's a werewolf.” Allison's eyes widen and tick to the camera in the corner. “Don't sweat it; I've taken care of that.”

She pales considerably, which is impressive, since she's looked like she's about to puke ever since the Sheriff stepped out of the shadows back at Talia's house.

“Oh, relax,” he says dismissively. “I'm not a Hunter. I actually think you deserve a fair trial.”

“Then what's going on?”

Stiles folds his hands in front of him on the table and stares at his old friend, who is now nothing more than a stranger.

“Someone told you about Percy.”

Allison frowns. “What?”

“Someone told you that a werewolf from the Hale pack shifted into full wolf form and ran away into the town. You're going to tell me who that person was.”

She shifts in her seat. “I told them, Lydia called me. She said her friend's daughter was missing.”

“I doubt she told you it was Derek Hale's werewolf daughter. Lydia's my sister, I know she's not that stupid. You knew that a werewolf in full shift had gotten loose in this town, that's why you came. You didn't know she was five years old. You were looking for a teenager, at the very least. You came here specifically to hunt a werewolf. So I'm going to ask you again. Who told you a full shift werewolf was loose in Beacon Hills?”

“They didn't...they don't deserve to be hurt.”

“Allison, someone tried to get Derek's five year old daughter killed – or at the very least, out of the way. He deserves to know who that person was.”

Allison swallows hard. “I don't think...I can't imagine that she actually wanted to...to have Percy killed.”

“She? It was a woman?”

“Stiles-”

“Allison, I don't care! Whoever this is might try again, and we might not be able to stop her next time.”

“I told you, I don't think-”

Stiles cuts her off again. “She called in Hunters on an innocent child, Allison! No matter what you think, she didn't have Percy's best interests at heart.” He takes a deep breath. “Please, Allison, Derek deserves to be able to keep his daughter safe.”

A tear tracks down Allison's cheek and Stiles feels a twinge of sympathy.

“Jennifer Blake.”

Stiles frowns. “The high school English teacher?”

Allison nods. “She's a former emissary, but her pack dismissed her for reasons I'm not privy to. But whatever happened, she turned her back on wolves and packs and turned to us. We use her to keep an eye on packs in general. She moves around a lot. She's useful.”

“So you have her spying on us? With magic?”

“I don't know how she does it, she just gives us a report every few weeks. New pack members, leavers. She was only supposed to be here for another few months when she called us to tell us that a werewolf was roaming Beacon Hills fully shifted.”

“And you didn't find that suspicious at all?”

“It happens, Stiles!” she yells. “Teenagers on their first full shift sometimes get lost in the blood lust if they haven't got a supportive pack.”

“The Hales _are_ a supportive pack!” 

“The way Laura Hale reacted to me in the diner, you can't blame me for thinking they were hiding something.”

Stiles sails right on by that accusation. “Where is Jennifer now?”

“I don't know. Her house was empty when we stopped by on the way to the Hales. She wasn't answering Kate's calls.”

He slides a fresh piece of paper towards her, as well as the pen. “You're gonna write down all of these tips that Jennifer has given you during the time she was working for you. If I find out you or your family have been responsible for the deaths of anymore innocent people, I'll make sure you never see the light of day again.”

He leaves the room before she has a chance to reply, and crosses the hall to the other interrogation room.

Kate has her feet kicked up on the table in front of her, which looks uncomfortable, if you ask Stiles, but who is he to judge?

“Well, well, if it isn’t the little sneak,” she says with a grin as he sits in front of her.

“Sneak? Nah, everyone knew who I was before you turned up at the house.”

Kate shakes her head. “Lies and slander.”

“Ask Allison if you don’t believe me. She paid me a visit in my apartment, we kinda got into it, and I threatened to arrest her for threatening a Sheriff’s deputy.” He pauses. “Which is exactly what I ended up doing. So, if you want to blame anyone for your current predicament, then Allison’s your gal”

Kate glares at him and thumps her feet back onto the ground. “I told my brother that Allison wasn’t ready to lead. I am the oldest female in the Argent line; I should have been matriarch when I came off age. Instead, my father passed the title to Allison’s mother as regent until she turned eighteen.”

“Jesus, it’s not that important. You’re talking about it like it’s some ancient European royal line. Not a family of murderers.”

Kate growls. “We are not murderers. We are peacekeepers.”

Stiles snorts, but otherwise ignores her. “Besides, I think I’ve figured out why no one wants you as the leader of a gang of werewolf hunters.”

Her smirk is back. “Oh, and why is that?”

Stiles reaches into the pocket of his pants, pulls out a handful of dust he stashed back at the house, and throws it at her.

The reaction is instantaneous. Kate’s growls get louder as the Mountain Ash hits her face and she pushes her chair back from the table, only to get pulled up short with her cuffs still attached to the table. The Mountain Ash sparks blue as it hits her skin.

When she meets Stiles’ gaze again, her features have changed. Instead of the fierce beauty he’s gotten used to, Kate looks like nothing short of a monster. Her skin is blue with darker mottling along her jaw line and ears, her eyes bright green and dilated, and her mouth is full of sharp fangs.

Stiles shrugs again. “Can’t run a monster hunting family if you’re a monster, can you?”

“I am not a monster,” she snarls through her teeth, leaning in as close as she can despite the ash.

“Not exactly human, though, are you?”

She takes several deep breaths to calm herself and he features slide back to normal, like water rippling across a pond. “How did you know?”

“I saw you flinch when I opened the Mountain Ash barrier you had your goons set up. Humans can’t feel it, they don’t notice the opening or closing of a circle. But weres do. I figured it out straight away, but I thought I’d let you keep some sort of dignity and not out you to your little friends. I didn’t know if they would try to kill you for lying to them. And I’d rather you were fit to serve whatever sentence is given to you.”

This time, she laughs outright, tipping her head back and everything. “I’m a werejaguar, do you really think you’re going to be able to keep me locked up anywhere?”

Slowly, Stiles returns the Mountain Ash to it's little pile on the table, while Kate watches him warily. “Well, see, I’ve been reading up on this whole Mountain Ash stuff and what I can do with it. You know, in the couple hours I’ve known about it at all. And there’s a theory.”

Kate narrows her eyes. “What theory?”

“The theory goes,” Stiles goes on, like she’d never even spoken, “that if a were has a solution of Mountain Ash and wolfsbane injected into their bloodstream, it quashes the powers of a were. Meaning, you’d just be a regular girl again.”

She bristles, sitting up straight in her chair. “You’re bluffing.”

“You wanna try me?” He crooks his finger and some of the ash rises up from the table and into his hand.

“What the hell are you?”

“Let’s just say, I’m not exactly human.”

It’s the first time Stiles has acknowledged what Lydia told him in the kitchen, that he had powers beyond that of a normal human male, and it doesn’t feel as strange as he thought it might.

Kate snaps her mouth closed and glares at him, her eyes shining green.

“I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Kate. One toe out of line and I’ll have that little concoction into your system so fast your head will spin right off.”

With that, he leaves, gathers up his fake papers and the Mountain Ash and makes sure the door is locked behind him. He didn’t need his thirty minutes after all.

He stops by Allison’s room and takes the list of names from her without even looking at her. She tries again to speak to him, but he leaves before she can utter more than two syllables.

When he gets back to the break room, his dad Danny and Parrish have joined Erica and Boyd and he holds out the list.

“Can one of you get this to Talia?

Erica frowns. “What is it?”

“Apparently, the Hunters have a mole – Ms. Blake, the English teacher. She was spying on the pack and other packs over the last couple years, feeding the Hunters info on anyone who stepped out of line, and the Hunters took care of it. This is a list of the people she fed to them. I want Talia to reach out and see if any of these people were actually innocent and what happened to them. I’m gonna add charges to Allison and the others as need.”

“Damn, son,” Noah says, taking the list from Erica, “looks like you're really getting into all this pack stuff.”

“Yeah, I’m really starting to think it’s my calling or whatever.”

Parrish snorts. “I have a feeling you have other callings.”

Stiles is about to ask him what the hell he’s talking about when the Sheriff speaks up first.

“Uh, is it snowing?” He's looking out the station window with a frown on hos face.

Erica follows his gaze and squeals with delight, clapping her hands. “The baby’s here!”

“Uh, and the snow told you that?” Stiles asks, confused.

“No, you moron. The baby’s a kitsune, obviously a weather kind. And I win the bet.”

“You are not the only one who won bet,” Boyd corrects. “It was a big pool.”

“Yeah, but Lydia guessed werewolf and Cora guessed completely human, so I win!”

Boyd and Parrish just shake their heads while Noah just keeps staring at the snow in wonder.

Right at that second, Stiles’ phone rings with a Facetime call and he answers to see Scott’s huge smile.

_“She’s here!”_ he practically shouts. _“It’s a girl and she’s here!”_

“Yeah, we noticed,” Stiles laughs, turning the camera so that Scott can see the snow, the moves around the room to get the others into the shot.

“What’s her name?” Parrish asks and Scott looks positively smitten.

_“Hiro Elena McCall,”_ Scott says with pride.

“Hiro? I love it!” Erica squeals.

Scott says something none of them can make out to someone off camera and he smiles at whatever they say back. He starts moving and turns the phone and then suddenly, there's Kira, sitting up in bed, with a bundle in her arms.

“ _Hi, guys!”_ she says, her voice sounding tired. She shifts a little and two little fists come into view before Scott gets a better angle, and then, there she is, beautiful little Hiro.

“Kira, she's got your nose!” Noah says, pleased.

“Thank God,” Erica mumbles. Parrish pokes her in the arm and she flinches harder than she should. “Ease up there, Flame Boy.”

“So, I guess she's a kitsune?” Boyd asks while Stiles is mesmerized by his new goddaughter.

“ _Yeah,”_ Kira says around a yawn. _“We called my mom, she thinks Hiro is a Wind kitsune. It means that she can control the weather.”_

The Sheriff laughs. “That would explain why it's snowing when it was sixty degrees an hour ago.”

“ _Sorry,”_ Kira and Scott say in unison, while baby Hiro starts to whimper.

They coo over the baby for a while before Kira lets out a huge yawn and Noah takes the phone.

“Alright, let the woman get some sleep. She's had a tough couple hours.”

They call out their goodbyes and Noah hangs up before he hands the phone back to his son.

“That goes for all of you, as well,” he says to the room. There's a chorus of groans but he shakes his head. “I don't want to hear it. Erica, Boyd, Parrish, you three were on shift when this whole thing started and Danny had just finished a double.”

Stiles whips around to glare at Danny, who blushes furiously. “We are going to have words, young man.”

“We're all going to have words if you're all not out of my station in the next ten minutes,” the Sheriff barks and they all scramble to their feet before there's a mass exodus towards the door.

“By the way,” Stiles calls over his shoulder, “Kate's a werejaguar. Toodles!”

He leaves the room to exclamations of surprise and lets out a yawn. He's exhausted.

“Keys,” Danny says from behind Stiles' left shoulder and his hand appears in his view.

Stiles shakes his head. “No way, bucko. You are not driving home. Not on my watch. I never would have asked you to help me if I'd known you'd been working so long. I'll drive you hom-” He cuts himself off with a grunt when Danny suddenly drapes himself over Stiles' back, like he's suddenly lost all power to hold himself upright.

“No arguments here.”

It takes a combination of carrying, dragging and trying to coerce Danny to walk under his own steam for Stiles to manage to get Danny to the Jeep.

“Did you take good care of my baby?” he asks as he settles behind the wheel. In the passenger seat, Danny snores.

After a short drive, it's another struggle to get a practically sleeping Danny up to their floor and into his apartment.

“Can you take it from here?” he asks, pointing Danny in the direction of his bedroom. Danny gives a mumbled reply and staggers off, leaving Stiles to let himself out and make his way to his own apartment. 

He collapses on the couch and stares at the blank screen of the TV, contemplating everything that's happened in the last twenty-four hours. His world has been turned upside down yet again – except this time, it's Stiles who's changed, not just everyone around him. There's still that little bit of ash in his pocket and he's completely aware of it, knows how much is there and what exactly he can do with it. He doesn't know what this means for his future, but, for some crazy reason, he's excited to find out.

His stomach rumbles suddenly as he realizes he hasn't eaten in a while, and as tired as he is, he needs to do something about that. He turns on the TV, finds a random episode of _Who's Line is it Anyway?_ He had TiVo'd and goes to the kitchen. He pulls some leftover Chinese out of the fridge and pops it into the microwave. It's not much of a dinner – or breakfast, really, he supposes – but it's all he can stomach right now.

The microwave dings just as there's a knock at the door and Stiles groans, looking forlornly at the food behind the glass.

Even as he makes his way through the apartment, Stiles knows this can't be a social call, and he starts preparing himself for whatever new crisis awaits him.

But, when he pulls the door open, he's nowhere near ready for what's standing in front of him.

“Hi,” Derek says softly, his hands in the pockets of a black leather jacket. He's staring at his feet.

“Hi,” Stiles replies dumbly. He gives himself a shake. “What are you doing here? I thought you'd be with Percy. It's late.”

“I know, but I, uh, I figured we never actually got a chance to really talk about what happened, and I didn't really want to wait any longer so...” He trails off and finally looks Stiles in the eye. “Can I come in?”

It takes Stiles a second to answer, as he thinks over all the reasons why this probably could wait until morning. But then he decides that he doesn't want to wait, and so he steps aside and allows Derek into his apartment. 

“Where is Percy?” Stiles asks as he watches Derek look around the small apartment. Derek's been here a few times, but Stiles' decor is so eclectic, he always finds something new to draw his attention.

This time, it's a Pop Vinyl figure, a snowman dressed as Captain America, that Lydia bought him for Christmas last year. Derek picks it up in his hands and fiddles with it as he talks.

“She's with my mom. As the Alpha, she has the power to take away certain memories. Or repress them, I guess, so that the person doesn't have to relive them.”

Stiles blinks. “Oh. It makes a lot more sense now why you all agreed to my plan so easily. I thought it just had something to do with your animal instincts and kids always needing to be ready to fight because of the Hunters. I like this better.”

Derek laughs, but he sobers quickly. “The process is traumatic, though. It's best that I'm not around when it happens. My instincts as a father, to protect my child, might...they might...” he swallows hard. “Let's just say it might get messy. It's happened before.”

“To your mom?”

“No, the Alpha before her, my mom's aunt. She never had children of her own, hence why my mom inherited her powers, so she never really understood what a parent's love for their child could actually mean. Not completely, not really. I don't know the whole story, I hadn't been born yet, but something happened, someone was attacked, their child was kidnapped, I think?” He phrases it like a question, like he's looking for confirmation, maybe, but since Stiles has no answers, he soldiers on. “The Alpha didn't really explain what she was going to do, what was going to happen, so when she actually did it, the child's parents lost their shit and attacked the Alpha. Took five other 'wolves to get them off of her, so the story goes, anyway. They weren't related to the Alpha, the parents, I mean, not by blood, anyway. It might be different, since my Alpha is also my mother, but I didn't want to take any chances.”

Stiles chews on his lower lip for a second, wondering if he has any right to ask the question that's sitting on the tip of his tongue. Eventually, though, he spits it out.

“What happens? I mean, what does she have to do?”

Derek smiles and falls down onto the couch, taking the snowman with him. “In order to take someone's memories, the Alpha has to dig her claws into the back of the person's neck, into their spinal column. I don't know what happens after that, I'm not an Alpha, and never will be, hopefully. But, as you can imagine, it wouldn't be pleasant to watch.”

Stiles shivers. He's not a father – not yet – but he can't even imagine how it would feel to watch someone he loved go through something like that, even if it was for their own good.

Although he does take a minute to think about how useful an ability like that would be – for both trauma victims and the staff dealing with them – and he finds himself cursing the fact that werewolves have to keep themselves hidden, for their own safety.

“So you came here?” he asks instead of whatever else he wants to ask.

“Figured I'd go get drunk, but I don't think there's enough alcohol in Beacon Hills. Here seemed like a good compromise.” Derek shrugs. “And like I said, we never actually talked. Not really.”

Stiles sighs and sits down next to him. “Alright, what is it you want to talk about?”

“Us?” Derek says, once again phrasing it like a question. “Is there still an us? Do you want there to still be an us?”

Stiles sighs again. “I don't know, Derek. Maybe? I mean, your sister still really hates me. She's gonna be your Alpha one day. What if she doesn't want me in the pack?”

Derek shrugs. “Then we leave the pack. Make our own pack. Join another pack. Whatever. Pretty sure Lydia and Scott would come with us. Maybe Isaac.”

“Then you'd have to be Alpha.”

“Fuck, no,” Derek snorts. “Scott can be Alpha.”

Stiles laughs, he can't help it. The idea of Scott leading a bunch of misfit supernatural creatures is funny to him. “Okay, if we can take Malia, you have a deal.”

“You take Malia, you gotta take Jackson.”

Stiles considers that. “I think I can make that work.”

It's Derek's turn to laugh. “Seriously, though, Laura doesn't really hate you as much as she did right after the diner.”

“Considering how much she hated me _before_ the diner, that's probably not as comforting as you think it is.”

“Stiles,” Derek says softly, and Stile melts a little.

“I really do like you, Derek. I think we work well together. And you know, meeting you, I got actually magical powers.”

“You always had magical powers, you just didn't know it.”

“I would have known it if my sister had told me about it,” he says with a huff.

“Being a Spark doesn't really mean much unless you're part of a pack,” Derek explains. “Not much use for Mountain Ash in every day life.”

“I wonder how many Sparks have gone to the Dark Side and joined the Hunters?”

Derek looks away, picking at him fingernails. “Are you sure the Hunters are the Dark Side?”

“Uh, yeah!” Stiles exclaims. “We pretty much just met Emperor Palpatine and Anakin Skywalker and a bunch of Stormtoopers. Please, I am clearly Obi Wan Kenobi in this scenario.”

“And who does that make me?” Derek asks, practically batting his eyelashes.

“Whoever the hell you want to me. We're rewriting this bitch.”

“As a love story?”

“As _our_ love story.”

Derek smiles brightly and Stiles rolls his eyes.

“Alright, fine, yes, we still have a love story. Or the beginnings of one, anyway.”

“That's all I want, Stiles. Just the chance to make something of this, for there to be something between the two of us. I think we could really have something amazing.”

“You're a pain in my ass, Derek Hale.”

Derek frowns. “I think we should do dinner first.”

Stiles hits him with a pillow.

  
  


///

  
  


“You guys throw a lot of parties, you know that?” Stiles says as he closes the door of Derek's SUV and takes in the spectacle around him. 

It's even grander than the last one he attended, complete with catered food and everyone dressed up all fancy. Stiles can even see his dad, dressed in his finest suit, sitting at a table with Lydia, Jackson and Natalie. Stiles can't help but smile, reveling the fact that all of his family are now in the know.

Stiles himself is wearing the finest clothes he owns – the navy dress slacks and vest he wore to Scott and Kira's wedding. He feels under dressed and out of place, but then Derek takes his hand and he doesn't care anymore.

The werewolf shrugs as he leads them towards a table, grabbing a few drinks from the make-shift bar as they pass. “We like to get together, celebrate. There's strength in the pack. We feel guarded and connected, so we literally use any excuse for a party.” He squeezes Stiles' hand. “This time, though, it feels like we have even more reason to celebrate.”

Stiles can feel himself blush. He hates the praise the Hales and the rest of the pack have been heaping on him. He didn't do anything special, nothing more than he would have done for anyone else. But he knows it's personal for them. So he sucks it up and gets on with it – even if it doesn't make every member of the pack like him more.

Allison has taken a deal. She's pleading guilty to attempted assault and attempted kidnap of a minor – because they can't actually prove they were planning on killing Percy – and threats against a member of law enforcement.

Most of her little gang of reprobates have folded as well, with just a few hold outs hoping to get off at trial. 

Kate is one of those hold outs, and they all face the prospect of having to give evidence against her. Jackson's prosecuting and he's already warned them all that she's planning on an insanity defense. Stiles doesn't really know how they could work, with Allison giving evidence alongside her own guilty plea, but that's not his job. 

It's also a question for another time, though, because something plows into his legs.

“Stiles! Gramma says you're my hero!” Percy gushes up at him, making Derek groan.

“I have definitely been replaced. I need food.” he wanders off towards one of the many buffet tables set up and Stiles just laughs as he reaches to pick Percy up.

Stiles knows she doesn't remember much – Talia took most of her memories to save her the harm of looking the woman who wanted to kill her in the eye. They're claiming trauma related memory loss, if she's approached to testify, but there were so many other people there that night, Jackson says he doesn't see it being an issue.

Percy, though, knows something happened that night and she knows that Stiles was a big part of the reason she's safe. So, yeah, he's her hero.

“Well, I couldn't let anything happen to a beautiful little puppy like you, could I? How could I live with myself?”

Percy glares at him. “Stiles, I'm not a puppy right now. I'm a girl.”

Stiles laughs. “My mistake.”

“Why don't you let Stiles get something to eat, Percy, and go play with your cousins.” A voice behind Stiles says. “You have the whole rest of your life to hang out with Stiles.”

Stiles turns to see Laura standing behind them, in a stunning yellow dress, and while he's glad she seems to have finally acknowledged that Stiles isn't going anywhere, she's still not his favorite person in the world.

“Can I show Eliot how I can turn into a puppy?” Percy asks and Laura smiles, soft and tender in a way Stiles has never seen.

“Sure.”

“Awesome.” Percy squirms until Stiles puts her down and he watches her race away to one of the gardens in the distance. Then, he gives Laura a tight smile and turns away, looking for Derek, his dad or literally anyone else that he can talk to, but Laura's hand on his arm stops him before he's taken more than half a step.

There's no pressure behind the touch, he can leave if he really wants to and Stiles knows that she has more than enough power to make him stay if she felt like it. But she's giving him the choice, to walk away or hear her out.

“Can we talk?” she asks, her voice timid and nervous.

He watches her for a few seconds, trying to find the trick, but she just blinks back at him, guileless, and he finally nods.

Laura leads him to a house he's never been to before and he figures it's hers and her family's. It's cozy and warm, lived in, toys and clothes and shoes scattered everywhere. She leads him to the couch in the living room and he has to move a Barbie doll off the seat before he sits down. They sit in silence for a while before Laura lets out an explosive sigh.

“I wanted to explain myself,” she says quietly.

“Okay.” He's not going to make this easy on her. She's done everything she could to paint him as the bad guy, trying to force him out of her pack, her family. He wants to see her grovel.

“Did you know we've met Kate before?” Laura says. She just spits it out, and Stiles is knocked off his metaphorical feet less than two seconds into the conversation just by her directness.

Stiles inclines his head. “I figured something happened between you guys, given her comments that night. Something to do with Derek, I take it?”

She nods, almost sadly. “Yes.”

“Did she do something to him?” Stiles asks, suddenly sweating even more.

“She tried,” Laura confirms. “She was a substitute teacher at his school. I don't know if that was a legitimate thing or if she was looking for leads or something, but when she found out who Derek was, she tried to use him to get to the pack. She tried to seduce him.”

Stiles feels a little ill. “Please tell me they didn't...”

Laura smiles. “No, Derek has a little more sense than that. He went straight to Aunt Esther, the Alpha at the time. She put a tail on Kate...literally.” She laughs. “Esther's emissary, Carol, could transfer her consciousness into an animal. She possessed a sparrow in order to follow Kate around.”

“Damn,” Stiles whistles, impressed. “She was planning to attack you guys?”

Again, Laura nods. “Our home is hidden, protected from people who mean to do us harm. They literally couldn't find it with a very detailed map.”

Stiles can't help it, he clears his throat and gives Laura a pointed look. She rolls her eyes.

“Yes, okay, I get the irony. I know how much of a bitch I am, I'm trying to explain why, okay?” He waves a hand, urging her to continue. “She needed Derek to lead her here, but he wasn't exactly playing ball. So she decided she would just kidnap Derek and make him take her home.”

Now it's Stiles' turn to roll his eyes. “I see her methods haven't changed in a decade.”

“Derek allowed himself to be taken. He brought her as far as the road leading to the Preserve and we were waiting for them. She had sackfuls of Mountain Ash. She was going to surround the whole preserve, then wait until we were all home to close the circle. She was also carrying gallons of gasoline and matches.”

Stiles jumps to his feet. “Jesus Christ. This is sick. What did you do?”

“What could we do, Stiles?” she asks, looking at him with frustration in her eyes. “We didn't actually catch her in the act; she was just a Hunter, always prepared, right? If we'd caught her with the gasoline poured and the lit match in her hand, it would have been different. But as it stood, all we had on her was the kidnapping, and she could always say that he attacked her in an empty classroom. The best we could do was report her to Argent Matriarch and let her decide if anything was to be done.”

“Which was apparently nothing,” Stiles says with a snort.

Laura agrees. “At the heart of it, all Hunters think that we're monsters. They can talk all they want about keeping the public at large safe from rogue attacks, but at the end of the day, they all wish they could do what Kate was planning.”

“How the hell can someone, _anyone_ , become so twisted like that?” Stiles wonders aloud, but Laura doesn't answer him, she's stuck back in her memory, her eyes glazed over as she stares back into the past.

“I was...enraged. It was the first time anyone had heard of Hunters using such underhanded tactics. I became instantly suspicious of anyone trying to get close to me. I was in college at the time and I became distrustful of all my supposed friends. My classmates, my professors. Even my own fucking _brother_ , the only human in our pack at the time. I didn't trust anyone, everyone was a potential enemy. I dropped out, came home and began stewing in this conspiracy theory I'd created in my mind. It took a long time to...deprogram me, I guess you could call it. I'm still not great around humans, but at least I can be in the same room as my brother without thinking he's working out the best way to kill us all in our sleep.”

A metaphorical light-bulb goes off over Stiles' head. “So, when Derek started to bring me around...” he trails off, but Laura picks up his thoughts.

“I was nervous, scared, even. And when I found out you knew an Argent, I kind of lost all of my senses.”

“Understandable, I guess.”

Laura shakes her head. “No, it wasn't. I should have let you explain yourself. You're right, we can tell when someone's lying and I didn't let you say anything in your own defense. I went off the deep end and I put the pack at risk.”

Stiles frowns. “Hey, now, that's going a bit far.”

“No, it's not. I might have pushed Allison to the edge. She might have been willing to hear us out if I had stayed even remotely sane at the diner.” Laura looks at him, her eyes huge and desperate. “She threatened you, Stiles, because of something _I_ said.”

“Isn't that what you tried to do?” The words are out of Stiles' mouth before he can stop them, and he cringes slightly when they just hang in the air like unexploded bombs. He shakes his head. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...to start something. I was just pointing out the irony, I guess. I'm not saying you're anything like Kate.”

“But I am, I guess. Or at least, I was. I turned on my own brother, Stiles. He's had to deal with my shitty attitude towards him for years. No wonder he ran away and joined the Marines. He probably took the first opportunity he could find to get away from me. I owe him a huge apology. Bigger than the one I've already given him.” She snorts. “Maybe I'll make him my Second. When I'm Alpha, I mean.”

Stiles shakes his head, his mouth working faster than his brain again. “Nah, Malia's your Second. Maybe Cora, if she can lose that regal edge she's been carrying around lately.”

Laura cocks her head to one side. “Malia? Why do you say that?”

Stiles shrugs, thinking it over. “Look at who your mom's Second is. Peter, right? Ruthless, conniving, violent. Everything your mom isn't, so that she can keep her hands clean. You aren't Talia. No offense.”

Laura waves him off. “None taken. I know I have a temper.”

“A mile wide. You need someone with a worse temper than you. So that you are the easier option. You want to make whoever you're dealing with want to avoid all contact with your Second, no matter the cost. That's Malia.”

Laura winces. “I mean, I can see your point. She would be a great second. But we aren't close, like, _at all_. I don't even remember the last actual conversation I had with her that didn't involve something like this.”

“You've got time to make a relationship. Talia isn't going anywhere any time soon.”

The future Alpha nods. “We should spend some time together, see if we get along.”

“Ask her to do something physical. She doesn't like to just sit around and talk.”

Laura narrows her eyes at him and Stiles grows nervous again.

“Hey, Malia and I dated a long time, ago, okay? We were teenagers. I'm with Derek now, stop giving me lasers eyes just because I have a past.”

“No, it's not that,” she says slowly, like she's considering. “You're good at this.”

Stiles frowns. “At what?”

“Pack politics and everything. I think I've made the right choice.”

“Right choice for what?” He throws up his hands. “Do all you Hales talk in riddles and half-sentences?”

“I want you to be my Emissary. When I become Alpha.”

Stiles blinks at her like an idiot, the wind knocked out of his sails. “I beg your pardon?”

She grins. “You heard me.”

“Laura, if this is some sort of guilt thing for how you treated me, seriously, you can make it up to me some other way. Like paying for the wedding.”

Laura waves a hand in the air. “The pack will pay for the wedding, don't be ridiculous.”

“Laura.”

“Mieczyslaw”

“Wow,” Stiles breathes, shocked, “that was impressive. I haven't heard anyone pronounce my name that clearly since my mom died.”

“I've been practicing since the barbecue. I was gonna use it when I formally accused you of manipulating the pack, but my emotions got the better of me,” she says, grinning like a little kid, but she sobers quickly. “Seriously, Stiles, you'd be perfect. You chose my Second in less than a minute. You're the most logical option.”

“I haven't even started my training! I'm supposed to meet Dr. Deaton next week.” And seriously, there's another member of Stiles' limited social circle connected to the pack. At this rate, it seems like the only person Stiles' knows who wasn't in the pack was Danny, though, since his date with Isaac went so well, that looks like it's going to change as well.

Laura smiles. “Like you said, Stiles; we have years.”

“Jesus, two months ago, I didn't even know werewolves existed. Now, not only am I part of a pack, but I'm an Emissary, too?”

Her smile grows wide. “Is that a yes?”

Stiles throws up his hands again. “I mean, yeah? I guess? How is anyone supposed to say 'no' to an offer like that?”

“Wasn't much of an offer if you ask me,” says a voice from behind them and Stiles looks over his shoulder to Derek, Percy, Cora, Lydia, Scott, Jackson and Peter file into the room from the kitchen, presumably after entering from the back yard. Cora is the one to have spoken.

“Yes,” Peter says, taking a seat in an armchair by the window, “there is usually a rather elaborate ceremony involved in asking someone to become your emissary.”

Laura makes an outraged sound in the back of her throat. “Well, obviously I was going to do it right when the actual time came, but he said it himself. He's not even in training yet! I want to get him locked in before Deaton lets him know how powerful he is and he starts looking for a more important pack to join!”

“There is no such thing,” Lydia says with a scoff and a wave of her hand.

“She's right,” Jackson adds. “At least, not in the United States.” He bobs his head. “Italy, maybe.”

“Hey, all of you!” Stiles shouts. “Stop talking about me like I'm not in the room. I'm not going anywhere, okay? It doesn't matter how many other more powerful packs we might find. My family is in this one. You're stuck with me.”

“Stiles is staying?” Percy asks as her father sits next to Stiles on the couch, the little girl on his lap.

Stiles turns to her with a grin. “Yep, I'm staying, sweetheart.” His eyes flick up to Derek. “That is, if certain people want me to stay.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “What are you even talking about?”

“Hey, you and me, that's the whole reason I'm here.”

“Percy is the whole reason you're here,” Scott chips in and Percy gives Stiles a beaming smile. He laughs.

“Alright, yes, that is also true.” He bops Percy on the nose. “Still.”

“Stiles,” Derek says softly, his eyes full of something that Stiles doesn't want to put a name to yet. “If you think I'm ever going to not want you here, you're definitely not as smart as you look.”

Stiles can't help it, he surges forward and kisses Derek deeply, uncaring who's watching.

It's only when Percy starts squirming and launches herself from Derek's lap that they finally part. He looks across the room to see Percy sitting on the floor with Scott. She's forgiven him for not recognizing her as a puppy and ever since Hiro was born, she's been clinging to Scott as much as possible.

“Emissaries live on pack grounds,” Peter says, watching Stiles carefully. “Just in case you were under any sort of illusion when it comes to that.”

Stiles suddenly understands why Peter has invited himself to this conversation. Yes, his son, nephew and nieces are here with him, but right now, Peter isn't here as a father and uncle; he's here as Alpha Hale's Second. He's here to test where Stiles loyalties actually lie, if he's still thinking like a solitary person, or part of a collective.

Stiles smiles at him. “I was looking to upgrade anyway. Not exactly feeling at home since my apartment was invaded by someone-” He cuts himself off when his eyes tick to Percy, looking back at him serenely. He clears his throat. “By someone willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wanted.” He finishes finally. 

Derek reaches out to stroke the back of Stiles' head while the others remain silent. 

“You can stay with us for a while, until we can get you your own place here,” he offers calmly.

This time, Lydia is the one who snorts, albeit a lot more delicately than anyone else. “Please. We all know if Stiles moves in with you, he's never moving back out. Why don't you just admit it. You're smitten with each other.”

“This is really fast,” Stiles whispers, well aware that everyone can still hear him, and he's given proof of that when Laura hums.

“Yeah, me and Harris knew each other for less than three months before we entered pack negotiations and he joined us a couple weeks later. We married within the year.” She shrugs. “When you know you know.”

Stiles turns to Derek, looks deeply into his sea-colored eyes and returns Derek's smile when one breaks out across his handsome face.

“Scott, Lydia, you two are helping me pack.” The two of them start protesting loudly, but Stiles shuts them up with a look. “You guys lied to me for _years._ It's the least you owe me.”

“Fine,” Lydia says with a pout.

Scott bounces Percy on his knee. “Look, you won't have to run away to see Stiles anymore.”

Percy launches herself away from Scott and barrels into Stiles with a grunt.

“Well, since that's settled.” Cora claps her hands and gets to her feet. “I'm starving. Who's with me?”

One by one, Peter, Laura, Lydia, Scott and Jackson follow Cora out of the house, back to the party. Leaving Stiles and Derek on the couch with Percy.

“You're really okay with this?” Derek asks, concern creasing his brow.

“Listen to my heart, Derek. You tell me.”

Derek nods. “Seems like we could have saved ourselves a little bit of time if we'd listened to your heart a bit sooner.”

Percy giggles. “Stiles' heart is still way faster than anyone else's.”

**Author's Note:**

> I needed a villian, and this time around, Allison Argent is it.
> 
> Sorry, Allison fans.


End file.
